European Ferns. 
From an entry in the household book of the Earl of Northumberland (i 5 1 1), it appears that" 
“ water of braks ” was distilled every year for domestic use. At a much later period even, 
the odour of fern was considered beneficial ; in a MS. upon the Natural History of Wiltshire, 
by John Aubrey, in the possession of the Royal Society, we read that “Dr. Theodore Mayern 
did prescribe to his patients that had hecticke feavers, to lay a stratum of feme on their under- 
blanket, by which they found much benefit ; the frescheur of the feme was moderately cooling, 
and the sent of it is very gratefull to the braine.” Gerard says that “ it is reported that the 
roote of feme cast into an hogshead of wine keepeth the same from sowring.” 
The Bracken is the plant usually intended under the name of “ fern ” in poetical works, as 
when Cowper speaks of 
“ The common overgrown with fern, and rough 
With prickly gorse 
and Burns refers to it by its other common name when he says, 
“ Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan, 
Wi’ the burn stealin’ under the lang yellow broom.” 
Breckan would seem, however, to be a Scotch name for ferns in general : it scarcely applies 
to Pteris aquilina in Tannahill’s lines 
“ Round the sylvan fairy nooks 
Feathery breckans fringe the rocks.” 
The Bracken is also the fern with the seed of which the gift of invisibility, referred to by 
Shakespeare and other old writers, was especially connected. It seems likely that the notion 
arose in an application of the “ doctrine of signatures,” according to which plants were 
supposed to bear some resemblance to the disease or purpose for which they might be 
beneficially employed. As far back as the time of Pliny, it was thought that the fern 
produced neither flower nor seed ; but as, in spite of this, it grew and multiplied, it was 
inferred that seed must be produced, although invisibly, and hence it came to be associated 
with the gift of invisibility. Locally, however, there are legends which suppose that the Bracken, 
in olden time, did produce blossoms ; thus, in Lincolnshire, it is said that until the Nativity it 
bloomed like other plants, and that it formed part of the cattle-bedding in the stable at 
Bethlehem, associated with the Lady’s Bedstraw. The latter plant put forth its blossoms in 
honour of the miraculous event, while the Bracken withheld them, and was hence condemned 
to lose them. In some parts of Shropshire it is said that the Bracken puts forth a small blue 
flower on Midsummer eve, which disappears with the first dawn of day ; and the Russian peasants 
also believe that it blossoms at this time, and that the finding of the flowers brings luck. It was 
formerly believed in Scotland that this fern blossomed on St. John’s eve, and that whoever got 
possession of the flower would be protected from all evil influences, and would obtain a revelation 
of hidden treasure. 
Midsummer eve was the period at which it was generally supposed the mystic fern-seed 
could be collected, and the accompanying gift of invisibility ensured. 
“ On St. John’s mysterious night, 
Sacred to many a wizard spell, 
The time when first to human sight 
Confest the mystic fern-seed fell : 
Beside the sloe’s black knotted thorn, 
What hour the Baptist stem was born — 
