SHAM SHAMROCK 271 



are called " sardines," the name of another and rarer fish, in 

 order to conceal the fact that they are sprats : clarified 

 horse fat is called " fresh country butter," and Irish 

 regiments are made to decorate themselves with common 

 clover under the delusion that it is the shamrock. Other 

 plants have been from time to time utilised to usurp the 

 title of " shamrock." Thus the small Lucerne clover or 

 medicago is often sold as " shamrock " to Irish patriots, 

 and the watercress has been solemnly put forward as the 

 true shamrock simply because old writers tell us, as evi- 

 dence of the barbarous state of the Irish, that they fed 

 upon shamrocks and watercress. The true shamrock 

 (the wood-sorrel) was formerly greatly valued all over 

 Europe as a salad and a flavouring herb on account of its 

 leaves containing oxalic acid. It was used for the manu- 

 facture of oxalic acid, which was sold as " salts of lemons " 

 for removing iron-mould. It was the basis of the soup 

 and of the green sauce for fish, in which the dock-sorrel 

 (Rumex) has now taken its place. The name " shamrock " 

 is an old Irish word, written " seamrag," and means a 

 little " trefoil." Curiously enough there appears to be 

 an Oriental word, " shamrakh," which I am told is of 

 Arabic origin, and also means a trefoil. In English 

 writers from the seventeenth century onwards the Irish 

 shamrock is variously written of as " shamroots, " shame- 

 rags " (this and the next following with hostile intent), 

 " shame-rogues," " sham-brogues," and " sham-rug." 



I am sorry to say that Shakespeare does not mention 

 the shamrock at all. No Irishman who knows the little 

 oxalis or wood-sorrel could wish for a more beautiful floral 

 emblem of the Emerald Isle, or dream of letting the vulgar 

 Saxon intruder the dwarf clover take its place. Perhaps 

 it is the Ulstermen who have set up the foreign " Dutch " 

 cover to replace the true shamrock, the wood-sorrel. 

 These changes are easily made. For instance, "green " is 



