24 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



Gumprecht (p. 417) turns it into German in the shape of " Fette 

 Niere," of which " Fat Kidney " would be the English equivalent. 

 Both in colour and form these seeds might be compared with kidneys, 

 and Sterpin's rendering is the one adopted in the pages of Fogh, Vibe, 

 and Kohl, the name being regarded as the equivalent of the German 

 " Zauber-Nieren " (magic or fairy kidneys), which becomes intelligible 

 in the light of the employment of these drift seeds as charms. 



It is, therefore, not a matter for surprise that these strange seeds 

 when picked up on the beaches of north-western Europe have been 

 used as charms. We have already remarked on their employment 

 for this purpose. Pennant, as we have seen, in his book on the 

 Hebrides classifies them among the amulets. But it is to the earlier 

 work of Martin on the same islands that we are indebted for particu- 

 lars in this respect. Of the seeds stranded on the island of Harris 

 he writes : " There is a variety of nuts, called Molluka Beans, some 

 of which are used as Amulets against Witchcraft or an Evil Eye, 

 particularly the White one, and upon this account they are Wore 

 about Childrens Necks, and if any Evil is intended to them, they say 

 the Nut changes into a black colour. That they did change colour 

 I found true by my own observation, but cannot be positive as to 

 the Cause of it." (This white nut is evidently the seed of Guilandina 

 bonducella.) Martin goes on to say that it is called " Virgin Marie's 

 Nut," and he gives an instance of its effect in removing the spell of 

 witchcraft from cows which gave blood instead of milk. 



Whilst noticing the employment of these drift seeds as charms one 

 may direct attention to an interesting observation made by Hemsley 

 in the Annals of Botany for 1892. He refers to a peculiar virtue 

 which not so long ago the people of the Hebrides ascribed to the 

 black seeds of Ipomcea tuberosa, one of the most remarkable of the 

 West Indian seeds thrown up on those islands. He is quoting from 

 an extract of the journal of Colonel H. W. Fielden, which was sent 

 with one of these seeds to Kew about 1891. The specimen was 

 given to this officer by a woman of North Uist, in whose family it 

 had been kept for a couple of generations. Known amongst the 

 Roman Catholic inhabitants of Long Island under a Gaelic name 

 signifying " Mary's Bean," it was believed to ensure easy delivery 

 when clenched in the hand of a woman in childbirth. 



Doubtless the belief in the protective powers of the West Indian 

 seeds thrown up on their coasts yet lingers with the fisherfolk of 

 the Scottish islands ; and in the Shetlands, as I have been told, the 

 wives of the fishermen still make ornaments of them. But these 

 islanders appreciate these gifts from the waves in another way. 

 Martin tells us of the medicinal uses to which the Hebrideans and 

 the people of Mull put the Molucca Beans or Indian Nuts. We are 

 informed that for the cure of dysentery and similar complaints the 

 powdered kernels of the black " Molocca " Bean (Entada scandens) 

 and of the " white Indian Nut " (Guilandina bonducella) when drunk 

 in boiled milk are " by daily experience found to be very effectual." 

 One would have scarcely expected the seeds of the last named to 

 be very efficacious ; but Sloane states (II., 41) that numerous virtues 

 were ascribed to the seeds of Guilandina bonducella in the West 



