THE MOONWORT AND ITS ALLIES. 53 
ers and so set the matter at rest. The old botanist, 
Culpepper, who wrote about 1650, says of the moon- 
wort’s reputed power to unshoe horses “ Moonwort is an 
herb which they say will open locks and unshoe such 
horses as tread upon it; these some laugh to scorn, 
and these no small fools neither, but country people 
that I know, cal it Unshoe the Horse; besides I have 
heard commanders say that on White down in Devon- 
shire near Tiverton there were found thirty hors-shoes 
pulled from the feet of the Earl of Essex, his horses 
being there drawn up in a body, many of them but newly 
shod and no reason known which caused much admira- 
tion ; and the herb described usually grows upon heaths.” 
Another ancient writer has done the idea into rhyme, as 
follows :— 
“ Horses that feeding on the grassy hills, 
Tread upon moonwort with their hollow heels, 
Though lately shod, at night goe barefoot home, 
Their maister musing where thir shooes be gone. 
O moonwort, tell us where thou hid’st the smith 
Hammer and pincers thou unshodst them with, 
Alas, what lock or iron engine is’t 
That can thy subtile secret strength resist, 
Sith the best farrier cannot set a shoe 
So sure, but thou so shortly cans’t undoe.” 
There was, however, some protest against these beliefs 
as may be seen from this quotation from Parkinson. “It 
hath beene formerly related by impostors and false 
knaves, and is yet believed by many, that it will loosen 
lockes, fetters and shoes from those horses feete that 
goe in the places where it groweth; and have been so 
audatious to contest with those who have contradicted 
them, that they have been known and seene it to doe 
so; but what observation soever such persons doe make, 
it is all but false suggestions and meere lyes.” Accord- 
