INVISIBLE SEED 97 



of "The wondrous one-night seeding Feme." Butler, in 

 'Hudibras,' writes, "That spring-like fern, that insect weed, 

 equivocally without seed." And as late as Addison's 

 'Tatler' we are told of a quack advertising that he "had 

 ^discovered the female fern-seed." This is all very puzzling 

 to an age which has lost, almost entirely, the amazing 

 traditions and superstitions which were current in the 

 Middle Ages concerning every plant, stone, and animal. 

 These traditions were dressed up, perverted, and confused 

 survivals of the still earlier beliefs of innocent country-folk 

 throughout primitive and prehistoric Europe and the East, 

 some of them based on real experience and fact, others 

 purely fanciful, or the outcome of a primitive system of 

 magic and witchcraft. 



The puzzling thing to the modern man about the fern- 

 seed tradition, namely, that the seed of the fern is invisible, 

 and confers invisibility upon whomsoever may gain posses- 

 sion of some of it and carry it in his pocket, is that so far 

 is fern-seed from being invisible that every school-boy and 

 school-girl knows the spore-cases of the ferns, the little 

 brown circular or oblong patches which appear on the back 

 of the fern-leaf or frond when mature (Fig. 6). These 

 certainly have the appearance of being "seeds," that is to 

 say, reproductive particles to be shed by the fern, which, 

 as a matter of fact, they are (though not seeds in the strictly 

 botanical sense), and it is astonishing that they were not 

 recognised by our forefathers. 



It is difficult at the present day to come across anyone 

 who knows or has heard of "fern-seed" and its marvellous 

 properties. Yet it was a belief of the ancient inhabitants 

 of Britain and of the French Bretagne, which they colonised, 

 that anyone who could obtain possession of some "fern- 

 seed" would become invisible and receive knowledge of all 

 secrets. The belief was widely spread in this country 

 throughout mediaeval times, and persisted till the end of 



7 



