WEST INDIAN DRIFT ON EUROPEAN SHORES 23 



In the foregoing pages I have paid the debt due to many of my 

 earlier predecessors in this line of research, and must refer the reader 

 for a fuller description of many of the works named to the biblio- 

 graphy at the close of this chapter. 



The Original Popular Names in Europe of the West Indian 

 Drift Seeds and the Superstitions connected with them. — 

 Reference has already been made to " Molucca Beans " as the name 

 of these seeds in the Hebrides and Orkney groups in the latter part 

 of the seventeenth century. Its origin is obscure. The younger 

 Wallace (1700) particularly observes that he did not know the reason 

 of this name as used by the Orkney islanders; but Sloane in his 

 Natural History of Jamaica (II., 41), published a few years after, 

 states that the seeds 44 are called Molucca Beans by the Inhabitants 

 of Scotland, they supposing them to have come from those islands 

 by an imaginary North East Passage." Several writers quote in 

 this connection the Scotia Illustrata of Sir Robert Sibbald, Geographer 

 Royal to Charles II., a work issued in 1694 ; but he merely includes 

 Phaseoli Molucani in a catalogue of marine plants and other things 

 M quae in Mari proveniunt " (II., lib. 4, p. 55). The appellation is em- 

 ployed in dictionaries of the Scottish language in the interpretation of 

 the vernacular names applied to the foreign seeds of the beach-drift, 

 a matter alluded to later in this chapter ; but no endeavour to throw 

 light on the origin of the epithet " Molucca " came under my notice. 

 It is, however, noteworthy that both Martin and Sibbald in the 

 works above quoted use the expression 44 Indian Nuts " or Nux 

 Indica to distinguish one or more of the Molucca Beans. 



Gumprecht (p. 420) gives a number of Scandinavian vulgar names 

 of these drift seeds, as obtained from the older Norwegian writers, 

 names which indicate the prevalent superstitious beliefs connected 

 with their origin 44 Ormesteen " or Adder- stone, 44 Losningsteen " or 

 Solvent-stone, 44 Buesteen " or Bent-stone, are some of the old Norse 

 names cited. The first was probably applied to the pale-coloured 

 marble-like seeds of Guilandina bonducella, and the third to the seeds 

 of Erythrina on account of their form. The Solvent-stone, according 

 to Tonning, was the name of the large seed of Entada scandens, 

 doubtless in indication of some special virtue attributed to it by the 

 people. 



It was around the Entada seeds that superstition often centred. 

 Debes, the historian of the Faroe Islands, displays some irritation 

 against Claussen who credited the Faroe islanders with the Norwegian 

 belief that one of these seeds 44 doth bring forth another stone when 

 it is kept long." 44 It is very certain " (Debes goes on to explain) 

 " that these seeds are found here ; but the inhabitants have not that 

 superstitious opinion of them. Neither is it any stone, but a West 

 Indian bean, as hath been told me by a very knowing man." Debes 

 wrote his book about 1670. It was published in Copenhagen in 

 1673, and the English translation by J.S. (identified in the British 

 Museum catalogue as John Sterpin) was issued in London in 1676. 

 We learn from Debes and Claussen that both in the Faroe Islands 

 and in Norway the seeds of Entada scandens were named 44 Vette 

 Nyre." This is translated by Sterpin as 44 Fairies' Kidneys " ; but 



