25 
and streams. This has been done very successfully by the 
Copleston family at Offwell, wbo have ornamented their fish 
ponds and brooks with this handsome Fern. It was taken 
from some neighbouring swamp, where it flourished in 
great luxuriance. It will also thrive in gardens and planta- 
tions if well supplied with peat or bog earth, and furnished 
with abundance of moisture. Though it grows in open 
fields in wet places, we should recommend a shady situation, 
if placed in a rather dry position. A large sod of earth 
should be taken when we transplant it from its native 
haunt. 
Various fables have been circulated respecting this plant. 
There is a story, that when the Danes used to make inroads 
into Britain, Osmund was a waterman at Loch Tyne. He 
had a fair and lovely daughter, and a fond and affectionate 
wife. When tidings reached him that a horde of these 
ruthless intruders were “Approaching his humble residence, 
he was at first perplexed what to do. Soon he determined 
to ferry his partner and child across the sea to a small 
island and hide them beneath this magnificent Fern. 
Scarcely had he done this, when the Danes obliged him to 
convey a formidable party to a different direction. Thus 
his child and beloved wife escaped their observation and 
were saved unscathed. Grateful for the mercy received, 
the daughter gave to it her father’s name, and it is called 
Osmunda Eegalis. Gerarde remarks, “ The root and espe- 
cially the heart or middle part thereof boyled or else 
stamped and taken with some kind of liquor, is thought to 
be good for those that are wounded, dry beaten, and 
bruised, that have fallen from some high place. The tender 
sprigs thereof at their first coming forth are excellent good 
unto the purposes aforesaid, and are good to be put into 
balms, oyles, and consolidations or healing plaisters, and 
into unguents appropriate unto wounds, punctures, and 
such like.” Such a value did our sage forefathers set on 
this and many other herbs and vegetables. 
The localities of this Fern are — 
Axminster; Higher Beaver Batches, Furzeleigh, the 
Moor, Little Park, and New Park. 
* Beaminster ; Meerhayes. 
