OF HERBS AND BEASTS 199 



grosses dents d'un loup qui aura ete tue en courant, le 

 cheval ne sera pas fatigue de sa course." No doubt 

 these proceedings were carried out by the traveller with 

 an air of mystery, and must have impressed the by- 

 standers, but one wonders what the rider thought of 

 them after an hour's journeying ? Satyrion is a kind of 

 orchis. There was a herb called Sferro Cavallo which 

 was supposed to be able to break locks or draw off 

 the shoes of the horses that passed over it. Sir 

 Thomas Browne speaks of it in his "Popular Errors," 

 and laughs the idea to scorn, and " cannot but wonder 

 at Matthiolus, who, upon a parallel in Pliny, was 

 staggered into suspension" [of judgment]. This plant 

 was probably the Horse-shoe Vetch, whose seed- 

 vessels, being in the shape of horse-shoes, may have 

 given rise to the superstition ; but Grimm thought it 

 was the Euphorbia Lathyris. The same belief is found 

 in different countries, I'eferred to other plants ; the 

 French thought that Rest Harrow had this marvellous 

 property, and Culpepper tells the same tale about the 

 Moon wort {Botrychium Lunaria), which had the country 

 name of Unshoe-the-Horse. " Besides, I have heard com- 

 menders say that in White Down in Devonshire, near 

 Tiverton, there were found thirty horse-shoes, pulled 

 off from the feet of the Earl of Essex's horses, being 

 then drawn up in a body, many of them being but newly 

 shod, and no reason known, which caused much admira- 

 tion, and the herb described usually grows upon heaths." 

 One would hardly have thought that " admiration " was 

 the feeling evoked, but perhaps nobody concerned was 

 pressed for time ! 



Hound's Tongue {Cynoglossum officinale) was believed to 

 have the remarkable property that it will " tye the 

 tongues of Houndes, so that they shall not bark at you, 

 if it be laid under the bottom of your feet." 



In Markham's advice about domestic animals, he 



