GERARD'S HERBAL 111 



the water beneath it is endowed with new life and is converted 

 into a living bird which they call the tree-goose. . . . Several 

 old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention 

 the tree and it must not be regarded as fictitious as some new 

 writers suppose." 1 



Even Hector Boece, in his Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland 

 (1536), took the myth seriously, but in his opinion " the nature 

 of the seis is mair relevant caus of their procreation than ony 

 uther thyng." William Turner accepted the myth and gives 

 as his evidence what had been told him by an eye-witness, " a 

 theologian by profession and an Irishman by birth, Octavian 

 by name," who promised him that he would take care that some 

 growing chicks should be sent to him ! In later times we find 

 that Caspar Schott (Physica Curiosa Sive Mirdbilia Naturae et 

 Artis, 1662, lib. ix. cap. xxii. p. 960) quotes a vast number of 

 authorities on the subject and then demonstrates the absurdity 

 of the myth. Yet in 1677 Sir Robert Moray read before the 

 Royal Society " A Relation concerning Barnacles," and this was 

 published in the Philosophical Transactions, January-February 

 1677-8. Among illustrations of the barnacle geese, that in de 

 rObel's Stirpium Historia (1571) depicts the tree without the 

 birds. Gerard shows the tree with the birds; in Aldrovandus 

 leaves have been added to the tree and there is also an illustration 

 showing the development of the barnacles into geese. 



As in all herbals the element of the unexpected is not lacking 

 in Gerard. Who would think of finding under the eminently 

 dull heading " fir trees " the following gem of folk lore ? "I 

 have seen these trees growing in Cheshire and Staffordshire and 

 Lancashire, where they grew in great plenty as is reported before 

 Noah's flood, but then being overturned and overwhelmed have 

 lien since in the mosse and waterie moorish grounds very fresh 

 and sound untill this day; and so full of a resinous substance, 

 that they burne like a Torch or Linke and the inhabitants of 

 those countries do call it Fir-wood and Fire-wood unto this 



1 Cosmographia Universalis, 1572, p. 49. 



