44 



The Earlier English Herbals 



[CH. 



these hylles drawe ye shyppes that have nayles of yren to 

 them, and breke the shyppes up drawynge of the nayles 

 out." This description is illustrated by a picture of a rocky 

 pinnacle and a ship going to pieces ; one man is already in 

 the water, and two others are on the point of losing their 

 lives. 



Many of the remedies for different ailments strike the 

 modern reader as being violent in a terrifying degree, and 

 adapted to a more robust age than the present ; they incline 



lae^eooface. 



Text-fig. 21. "Nenufar" = Waterlily [The Grete Herball, 



1529]. 



one to echo the words, " There were giants in the earth in 

 those days." But apparently the sixteenth century held 

 an exactly corresponding view of its predecessors, for 

 under the heading of "whyte elebore" we read, " In olde 

 tyme it was commely used in medycyns as we use squamony. 

 For the body of man was stronger than it is now, and myght 

 better endure the vyolence of elebore, for man is weyker at 

 this time of nature." 



It is somewhat remarkable that both Christianity and 



