]l<j THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



of the eddy. He made the attempt, was sucked down 

 and drowned, and hence the spot has been since known 

 as Simons' Bath. So runs the tradition in the neigh- 

 bourhood, varied in details by different narrators, but 

 not so apocryphal, perhaps, as the story of the two 

 giants, or demons, who amused themselves one day 

 throwing stones, to see which could throw furthest 

 Their stones were huge boulders ; the first pitched his 

 pebble across the Bristol Channel into Wales; the 

 second's foot slipped, and his boulder dropped on 

 Exmoor, where it is known as White Stones to this 

 day. The antiquarians refer Simons' Bath to one 

 Sigmund, but the country-side tradition declares it 

 was named from a man who was drowned. Exe and 

 Barle presently mingle their streams by pleasant oak 

 woods. 



At the edge of one of these woods the trench, in 

 the early summer, was filled with ferns, so that, instead 

 of thorns and brambles, the wood was fenced with 

 their green fronds. Among these ferns were some 

 buttercups, at least so they looked in passing ; but a 

 slight difference of appearance induced me to stop, 

 and on getting across the trench the buttercups were 

 found to be yellow Welsh poppies. The petals are 

 larger than those of the buttercup, and a paler yellow, 

 without the metallic burnish of the ranunculus. In 

 the centre is the seed vessel, somewhat like an urn ; 

 indeed, the yellow poppy resembles the scarlet field 

 poppy, though smaller in width of petal and much 

 more local in habitat. So concealed were the stalks 

 by the ferns that the flowers appeared to grow on 

 their fronds. On the mounds grew corn marigolds, so 



