204 POPULAR NAMES 



SANICLB, a word usually derived immediately from 

 L. sanare, heal, which on principles of etymology is impos- 

 sible. Indeed it is, as Adelung remarks, an even question, 

 whether its origin is Latin or German. Its great abundance 

 in the middle and north of Europe would incline us rather 

 to the latter as the likeliest, and it may be a corruption of 

 Saint Nicolas called in German Nickel. Whatever its 

 derivation, the name was understood in the Middle ages 

 as meaning "curative/ 1 and suggested many proverbial 

 axioms, such as : 



"Q,ui a la bugle et la sanicle, Fait aux chirurgions la nicle." 

 " He who has bugle and sanicle makes a joke of the sur- 

 geons ; " and 



" Celuy qui sanicle a, De mire affaire il n'a." 

 " He who keeps sanicle, has no business with a doctor." 

 Sanicula does not occur in classical Latin writers, and there 

 is no such word as sanis or sanicus from which it could 

 have been formed. But in favour of the derivation from 

 San Nicola or Sanct Nickel, is the wonderful Tale of a Tub, 

 the legend of his having interceded with God in favour of 

 the two children, whom an innkeeper had murdered and 

 pickled in a pork tub, and obtained their restoration to life 

 and health. See Forster's Perennial Calendar, p. 688, 

 and Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 273. 

 A plant named after this saint, and dedicated to him, might 

 very reasonably be expected to " make whole and sound 

 all wounds and hurts both inward and outward," as Lyte 

 and other herbalists tell us of the sanicle. The Latin 

 name, as in so many other cases, would be the nearest 

 approach that could be made to the German. See SELF- 

 HEAL. Sanicula europaea, L. 



SARACENS CONSOUND, M.Lat. Consolida Saracennica. 

 Parkinson says (Th. Bot. p. 540), that "it is called Solidago 

 and Consolida from the old Latine word consolidare, which 

 in the barbarous Latine age did signify to soder, close, or 



