(1) Why, ’tis a cockle or a Walnut-shell, 
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap. 
Taming of the Shrew , iv. 3, 66. 
(2) Let them say of me/ 1 As jealous as Ford that searched a hollow Walnut 
for his wife’s leman .”—Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 2, 170. 
ALNUT is a native of Persia and China, and 
its foreign origin is told in all its names. The 
Greeks called it Persicon, i. e. the Persian 
tree, and Basilikon, i. e. the Royal tree; the 
Latins gave it a still higher rank, naming 
! it Juglan’s, i. e. Jove’s Nut. “ Hsec glans 
optima et maxima, ab Jove et glande juglans appellata est.”— 
Varro. The English names tell the same story. It was first 
simply called Nut, as the Nut par excellence. “Juglantis vel 
nux , knutu.”— vElfric’s Vocabulary. But in the fourteenth 
century it had obtained the name of “ Ban-nut,” from its hard¬ 
ness. So it is named in a metrica .1 Vocabulary of the fourteenth 
century— 
Pomus Pirus Corulus nux Avelanaque Ficus 
Appul-tre Peere-tre Hasyl Note Bannenote-tre Fygge; 
and this name it still holds in the West of England. But at 
the same time it had also acquired the name of Walnut. “ Hec 
avelana , A de Walnot-tree ” (Vocabulary fourteenth century). 
“ Hec avelana , a Walnutte and the Nutte ” (Nominale fifteenth 
336 
