XX11 INTRODUCTION. 



Anglo-Saxon period. In Suffolk, too, there has been a 

 great number of valuable old names preserved, and care- 

 fully recorded in the Vocabularies of Moore and Forby. 

 Many that are familiar to us in ancient herbals and in 

 old poetry, have long fallen into disuse, except as they 

 occur in the names of villages, and surnames of families, 

 such as the places beginning with Gold, the ancient 

 name of the marigold ; as Goldby, Goldham, Goldthorpe, 

 Goldsbury, and Goldworthy ; and the families of Arnott, 

 Sebright, Boughtflower, Weld, Pettigrew, Lyne, Spink, 

 Kemp, and Harlock. Those of the commonest plants are 

 the most variable, as the rarer ones have attracted too 

 little of popular notice to have any but such as are given 

 in books. 



It seems desirable that these old names should be 

 preserved, but there is already much greater difficulty 

 in obtaining a correct list of those of any particular dis- 

 trict, and the meaning of them, than there was a genera- 

 tion ago, from the dying out of the race of herb-doctors, 

 and of the simplers, generally females, who used to collect 

 for them. It is doubtful, indeed, whether any one of this 

 class could now be found, who has learnt them from tradi- 

 tion, and independently of modern books. 



One of the last was about eighty years ago living at 

 Market Lavington in Wiltshire, a genuine old-fashioned 

 specimen of his class, a Dr. Batter. He was under- 

 stood to have had a regular medical education, probably 

 as an apothecary, and certainly enjoyed a very high 



