22 Mr. Charles L. Barnes on 



wind off it. It is somewhat startling to read that " the 

 turtle is a bird, simple, chaste, and fair, and loves its mate 

 so much that never during his life will it have another. 

 Always afterwards it will lament him ; nor will it be any 

 more on the branch." One's appreciation of what appears 

 at first sight an amazing blunder is, however, spoilt by the 

 reflection that turtle here is the French tourterelle, and is 

 more familiar as turtle dove. Here is also the adder 

 which fears the voice of the enchanter, and to keep itself 

 from harm closes one of its ears with its tail and presses 

 the other to the ground ; the eagle which, when its eyes 

 are dim, and its wings can no longer carry it, flies to the 

 highest regions of the sky, and when the sun has burnt 

 its wings and blinded its sight, falls into a fountain, 

 plunges therein three times, and is revived ; and many 

 more too numerous to mention. The fable of the adder 

 stopping its ears is of great antiquity, being alluded to in 

 Ps. 58, v. 4 and 5: "They are like the deaf adder that 

 stoppeth her ear ; which will not hearken to the voice 

 of charmers, charming never so wisely." Again, in Ps. 

 I03 5 v. 5, the words, " So that thy youth is renewed 

 like the eagle's," give at least an equal antiquity to the 

 other one. 



In the " Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and Starcraft of 

 Early England," we are struck by the quaint Anglo-Saxon 

 expressions for medicine, botany, and astronomy, while at 

 the same time we recognise that the difficulty of translating 

 scientific works into the vernacular must have been very 

 great. The Leech book, dating from goo to 950, is com- 

 piled from Greek and Roman, as well as from Eastern and 

 Scandinavian sources. In it an ache or pain is usually 

 called "wark," a word which has survived to our own day 

 in the dialect of this county, with only a slight change. 

 " For tooth wark, burn white salt and garlic, make them 

 smoke on glades (ashes), roast and tear to pieces, add 



