46 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



on "Strange and Outlandisli Plants." The Anaeardiuni seed is amongst 

 those mentioned by Gunner in 1765, and afterwards referred to by Flygare 

 and Tonning, as having been stranded on the Norwegian coast. 



Alongside the wide-spread popular belief in the exotic origin of these 

 drift seeds there existed in certain quaiters a notion that they were native 

 products, fruits of the mysterious and inexhaustible fertility of the sea. As 

 we have seen from Sir George Mackenzie's paper of 1675, the islanders of 

 the Lewes believed the drift beans to come from the Sea-Tangle or Laminaria, 

 and Moselcy tells us that in the i Bermudas and Tristan d'Acunlia the sea 

 beans found there are supposed to grow at the bottom of the sea.' But the 

 most interesting account of such a belief, and one that appears to have 

 eluded the notice of previous inquirers, is given by Clusius in the tenth book 

 of liis "Exotici" of 1605. Speaking of the Entada Bean, he shows that 

 the men of the Fiiroes held a belief similar to that of the Lewes islanders at 

 least seventy years earlier than Mackenzie's record. 'I'lu' passage, whicli 

 occurs at page 336 of Clusius, may be thus rendered : — 



" A most learned friend of mine wrote to me to say that the Norwegians 

 were altogether persuaded these were Sea Beans, and that they grew up 

 from deep water amongst sea-weeds in the Islands of the Faroes, so that the 

 very cods that hcM them were brought up to view as they fabled. But in 

 truth these cods, for I have seen one that lie sent me, were nothing other 

 than the egg-cases of the I»ay fi.sh.- From the shape of these beans some 

 call them Sea Kidneys, others Lucky Stones, because they believe that if one 

 possessed them they would fend off calamity from his house or enchantments, 

 and 1 know not what, of hurt or damage from his cattle."' 



Contrary to expectation, I have not been able to discover in Ireland any 

 current beliefs as to the occult virtues of the Sea Beans similar to those 

 found prevalent by Martin in the Hebrides when he wrote his "Desciiption" 

 in 1703. The only literary reference to such beliefs as existent in Ireland 

 which I can find occurs in "Letters from the Irish Highlands of Cunnemarra," 

 already quoted from, where the writer tells us that the " unlearned natives 

 of Cunnemarra have found a fanciful use for these nuts by laying them under 

 the pillows of their straw beds as a charm against the nocturnal visits of the 

 fairies." No doubt a fund of folk-lore still lingers round these mysterious 

 sea-waifs in the minds of the wise women of our western coasts. Such lore, 

 however, is not to be extracted without patient and skilful manipulation. 



' " Notta of a Naturalist," J8!»2, p. 15. 



' The familiar sea-shore objects known as Mermaid's Purses, 



' For original text see Appendix C, 



