150 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



taste, and have on this account been sometimes employed 

 in culinary operations. In old herbals the plant is often 

 called the herb-bennet, a name that sprang from the 

 beneficent nature of the plant, since it was not only, 

 according to the monks, a herb of potent might in the 

 assuaging of bodily pains, but a very present and effectual 

 help in things spiritual, against the wiles of evil spirits or 

 the influence of wicked men. As a corruption of the 

 monkish title, it is sometimes called herb-bonnet, a name 

 quite meaningless ill itself, but a fair illustration of the 

 way in which, when a name ceases to be understood, it 

 becomes perverted into something else that is at least 

 English in sound though devoid of sense. As an example 

 of this, we may quote the case of the Hypeneum 

 androscemum, which in the Middle Ages was known as the 

 toute saine, but which in many parts of England is now 

 called touchen-leaf. Its ordinary book name is tutsan, an 

 evident corruption of the old monkish term. Many other 

 instances and some of them very curious in the transition 

 undergone might readily be given, did the limited space 

 at our disposal justify our wandering at will into those 

 pleasant by-paths. 



Though the medical virtues of the avens were held in 

 such high esteem as to make it pre-eminently the Herba 

 benedicta, modern experience has not confirmed the high 

 opinion thus held. It is slightly astringent, and the roots 

 have been at times used to add a special and distinctive 

 flavour to ale, and from a belief that it prevented it from 

 turning sour. As is the case with all plants, whatever 

 properties it may possess vary greatly under various 

 circumstances of growth and at various stages of the 

 plant's history ; but in the present plant, under any cir- 



