FENNEL 287 



and it would be a very easy task to bring forward 

 any number of prescriptions in which various 

 venerable herbalists introduce one or other of 

 these plants into the service, and of course these 

 mediaeval authorities in their wonderful respect for 

 antiquity carry on the statement they found in the 

 pages of Pliny, and declare of the fennel that 



" The neddere * whaune hurt in eye 

 He schall it chow wonderly. 

 And leyn it to hys eye kindlely 

 Ye jows shall sawg and hely ye eye 

 Yat beforn was sicke and feye." 



Maplet, in his book "A Greene Forest," pub- 

 lished in 1567, tells us that " Fenkell is an Herbe 

 of the gardaine and field, common to them both, 

 but not so common as effectuous. The Latin name 

 signifyeth that it should sharpen of the eiesight, and 

 Dioscorides also sayth that the iuyce of this herbes 

 roote quickneth the eyes. Plinie, as also Isidore, 

 saith that the verie Serpents (if nothing else did) 

 were sufficient to Noble it and to cause this kinde 

 to be well reckened of, for that though the onely 

 taste or eating therof they shake off many sick- 

 nesses, and thereby keepe away from them weake 

 and olde age." Buttes, in his " Table Talke," pub- 

 lished in 1599, is no less explicit. We learn from 

 him that " Snakes and Serpentes by eating Fcenill 



1 Adder. 



