MALE FERN. 
199 
other will not. The same author recommends a piece of the 
root of this fern to be laid under the tongue of a horse that has 
fallen sick from any unknown cause : by this application the 
disease will be expelled, and the horse recovered.^' Indepen- 
dently of these quaint accounts we learn that the root was for- 
merly employed somewhat extensively in medicine ; but the 
result of my enquiries on this subject is, that the Male Fern has 
long since ceased to be a plant of importance to the apothecary in 
this country, although still in considerable use in Switzerland. 
Schkuhr says that this fern, together with its roots, us used in 
dressing leather, and the ashes in bleaching linen and in the 
manufacture of glass. In Norway its fronds serve as fodder for 
oxen, horses, sheep and goats : when dried it furnishes good 
litter for cattle, and when decayed is a valuable manure. 
“ Formerly,” continues the same author, this fern and its 
root were applied to many superstitious uses, since divers vaga- 
bonds prepared from the latter, together with its young incurved 
and yet unexpanded fronds, the so-called Liicky-hands or St, 
John’s hands, which they sold to ignorant and credulous people, 
both in town and country, as preservatives against witchcraft 
and enchantment. This still goes on in our own enlightened 
time, and it is a great scandal to Christianity that many men 
believe more in such things than in anything else. Only a few 
years ago a clergyman’s wife in this neighbourhood purchased 
one of these St. John’s hands for four shillings, and I have 
known others buy little bits cut from such a hand for four to eight 
groschen, to be given in drink to their cattle, as a means of pro- 
tecting them against enchantment and witchcraft : it is a pity 
that such remedies will not also protect us against death.”f 
Tragus also informs us that some of the uses to which this fern 
were formerly applied are too scandalous to relate. It is very 
amusing to find almost every one of these old botanists bewailing 
the wickedness and credulity of times gone by, yet recommending 
^ Quod si equus considerit nesciatnrque qua aegiitudine laboret particula 
hujus radicis, linguas eius sub ijciatur, quo facto equus confertim utrinque dejicit 
recrementa,rursusque consurgitid quod ipse ita se habere comperi. — Tragus, 547. 
f Schkuhr, p. 46. 
