“ All in ye Merrie Month of May ” 
fern seen in spring is a sure cure for toothache, provided 
you bite off the top. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson have 
curious allusions to an old fantaisie that fernseed carried in 
the pocket rendered the bearer invisible. This belief also 
prevailed in Scotland and in Germany. I gathered a great 
beaupot of Wild Cherry blossom to-day, and a perfect sheaf 
of Sweetbriar ; it quite scents the house ; so, if we are not 
cheerful we should be, as it is said to promote cheerfulness. 
Anchusa Italica (Alkanet) is in flower. I wonder how it 
came into this Scotch garden. With us it has escaped 
from the kitchen-garden out on to the riverside haugh. I 
have seen it in one farmer’s garden near here and in an old 
churchyard, but I do not think it is common. It is pro- 
bable that some of the plants which seem to be naturalised 
foreigners or garden escapes, may have been introduced 
by the Saxon monks, who seem to have cultivated a variety 
of medicinal and potherbs in their gardens. It has been 
asserted that more than three hundred kinds of medicinal 
plants were in use by the monks, and that many of the 
names they gave have been changed for other names, some- 
times less appropriate, just as if the Protestant iconoclasts, 
to whom we owe the destruction of so many beautiful 
church buildings, had extended their destroying rage to the 
herbs whereby the maligned religious orders benefited the 
sick. In the British Quarterly Review , 1851, may be found 
the following list of plants cultivated in the garden of a 
Saxon convent : Peppermint, Pansy, Sage, Rosemary, Rue, 
Pennyroyal, Cummin, Watercress, Fenugreek, Cornflag 
(our Gladiolus), Loveage, Fennel, Savoy, Roses, Kidney 
Beans, and White Lilies, Poppy, and Coriander. At 
Coldingham Priory, about eighteen miles from here, there 
was a large flower-garden before 1259. Judging by the 
plans of other early monkish gardens, the vegetables were 
probably grown in a separate part from the flowers and 
herbs, this part being generally known as the Herbarium, or 
Herbere by the common Scots people. King David I. is 
said to have taken great pains to encourage gardening 
amongst the monks, and was no mean gardener himself. 
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