95 



and beds were also made of it. It is esteemed a good remedy 

 for rickets in children, and for curing worms. 



Adiantum capillus-Veneris — IMaiden-hair fern. Gaelic : fail- 

 teanfiòìiìi (Armstrong), ixom fa/t, hair, axvafionn, fair, resplendent. 

 This fern is only known in the Highlands by cultivation. This 

 name is frequently given to Trichomanes {ditbh chàsach) impro- 

 perly. 



Ophioglossum — From Greek : o^t?, a serpent, and yXÚ)(rar], a 

 tongue. Tlie little fertile stalk springing straight out of the 

 grass may not inaptly be compared to a snake's tongue. 



0. vulgatum — Adder's tongue. Li/s na fiaf/iraif/i (^VKenzìe), 

 the serpent's weed. Teanga a' nathrach, the adder's tongue. 

 Welsh : tafad y 7ieidr, adder's tongue. In the Western High- 

 lands, beasan or feasan (Stewart). 



Osmunda — Osmunder, in Northern mythology, was one of the 

 sons of Thor (Gaelic : Tordan, the thunderer, the Jove of the 

 Celts ; OS in Celtic, over, above, upon, and mi/tiata, a champion, 

 in Irish), — said to have received the name on account of its po- 

 tential qualities in medicine. 



0. regalis — Royal fern. Gaelic: raiiieach riog/iail, kingly 

 fern ; rigk faiueach, royal fern. In Ireland it is called bog- 

 onion. 



Botrychium lunaria — ]\Ioonwort. Gaelic : /uan liis, moon- 

 wort. Welsh : _;r lleuadiys, — //ei/ad, moon. " Zuan, the moon, 

 seems a contraction of luathan, the swift planet" — Arm- 

 strong. But rather from Sanscrit : luach, light. Latin : liina. 

 French : lune. Deur his and dealt Ins (Stewart),— «'^//r, a tear, 

 a drop of any fluid, and dealt, dew. This plant was held in 

 superstitious reverence among Celtic and other nations. Horses 

 were said to lose their shoes where it grew. " On Sliabh Riab- 

 hach Mountain no horse can keep its shoes ; and to this day it 

 is said that on Lord Dunsany's Irish property there is a field 

 where it is supposed all live stock lose their nails if pastured 

 there." "A Limerick story refers to a man in Clonmel jail who 

 could open all the locks by means of this plant." The same 

 old superstition still lingers in the Highlands — 



There is an herb, some say whose virtue's such 

 It in the pasture, only with a touch, 

 Unshoes the new-shod steed. 



"On White-Down, in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there was 

 found thirty horse-shoes pulled off from the feet of the Earl of 

 Essex, his horses being there drawn up into a body, many of 



