108 FERNS OF THE LAKE COUNTRY 



his cottage, when a company of Danes rushed in ; but 

 they hurt him not, for they knew that he could do 

 them service. During the day and night did Osmund 

 row backwards and forwards across the river (or the 

 lake ?), ferrying troops of those fierce men. When the 

 last company was put on shore, Osmund, kneeling be- 

 side the river's bank, returned heartfelt thanks to 

 Heaven for the preservation of his wife and child. 

 Often in after-years did Osmund speak of that day's 

 peril ; and his fair child, grown up to womanhood, 

 called the tall Fern by her father's name." So says 

 the heart-thrilling legend, touching, in its conclusion, 

 even to the scientific botanist, accounting for the name 

 of the stateliest of our Ferns. There is another sup- 

 position, however, that the name is derived from os 

 and mimd, Saxon words for home and strength or 

 peace, though what house-strength or house-peace has 

 to do with the Flowering Fern it is difficult to say. 

 Why not even a third guess, hardly likely to be farther 

 off than the others, that it has something to do with 

 Osmonds in old Saxon iron ore, for is it not found in 

 the iron countries, in Durham and in South Wales, and 

 in our own iron district of Cumberland, if not nearer 

 than Egremont or Sea Scale, yet that is nearer than 

 Loch Tyne and the river of the ferryman ? Whatever 

 the origin, however, of the name given it by Linnaeus, 

 the Koyal Osmund is indeed the grandest of. our Ferns, 

 under all circumstances a handsome plant, but espe- 

 cially beautiful when, in very luxuriant growth, its 

 fronds, loaded at their tips by the fertile panicles, are 

 bent down gaacefully until they almost reach the sur- 



