OLD ENGLISH FLOWER-NAMES 143 



and stock. Another name for this flower was sops- 

 in-wine 



' Many a clove gilofre 

 And notemuge to put in ale, 

 Whether it be moist or stale.' 



Gerarde observes that 'the eonserue made of the 

 floures of the Cloue Gillofloure and sugar, is exceed- 

 ingly cordiall, and wonderfully aboue measure doth 

 comfort the heart, being eaten now and then.' Why 

 does not some enterprising housewife revive this 

 forgotten dainty 1 



There has been controversy, too, over the iden- 

 tity of Homer's asphodel. It was probably a kind 

 of narcissus, and the name survives in our c daffodil,' 

 through the old French fleur d'asphodille \ but Lucian 

 and later writers assigned it to a plant with an edible 

 root, classed by Linnaeus as Asphodelus. Another 

 kind of narcissus (N. incomparabilis) is well named 

 nonpareil, though the fragrant double form thereof 

 has fared less felicitously as butter-and-eggs. 



Talking of edible roots, notice may be made of a 

 comical blunder fallen into by the early translators 

 of the Old Testament. We read in 2 Kings vi. 25 

 that, during the siege of Samaria in the reign of 

 Ahab, the famine was so terrible that the fourth 



