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 w’hen 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 
t^d a fair and lovely daughter, and a fond and affectionate 
wife. When tidings reached him that a horde of these 
rujhless intruders were approaching his humble residence, 
he .w'as 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 Bern. 
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 there- 
of 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. 
This Bern grows, in addition to the places already enu- 
merated, in a boggy wood near Avishays, in the parish 
of Chard, also in Monkton Wylde and Offwell. Other 
localities of this and rarer Berns, will be given at the end 
of the book. 
