64 
THE MALE FERN. 
Galen nsed it; Pliny also, who also called it Filix- 
mas. Its astringent stems have been employed in 
tanning leather, and its ashes in bleaching linen, and 
making glass and soap. Bishop Gunner speaks of 
the young curled fronds being boiled and eaten like 
asparagus, and says that the poor Norwegians cut off 
the succulent laminae at the crown of the root (the 
bases of the future stalks) and, adding a third portion 
of malt, brew from them a kind of beer. In times of 
great scarcity they mix them with their bread. Cut 
green and dried in the air, this Fern, like the Bracken, 
is used in Westmorland and Cumberland as litter for 
the cattle; and if steeped in hot water would, it is 
said by the bishop, be a not despised but readily-eaten 
and fattening food — for the cattle as well as the 
Norwegians. The young crosier-like stems were of 
old called St. John’s hand or ‘ lucky hands,’ con¬ 
sidered to be preservation from witchcraft. 
This may be said to be the most common Fern of 
the Lake District, for it abounds everywhere, and adds 
materially to the beauty of every landscape. Its 
varieties are many, and some of them beautiful, but 
are much less frequently met with than those of the 
Athyrium Filix-feemina, the Polystichum angulare, 
or the Scolopendrium vulgare; of these varieties 
*he Lake Country has yielded far beyond its share ) 
both in number and excellence. In the typical form 
few, if any, can compare with the beautiful and 
symmetrical Barnesii, found near Milnthorpe ; or, in 
the paleacea type, the truly elegant form called 
Pinderi, found at Elterwater; or in the abbreviate 
