[27] Query.—Has the Lancashire and Yorkshire word "lake," meaning "to play," anything in common with the modern word "larking," now so much in vogue?
CHAPTER VIII.
FERN-SEED AND ST. JOHN'S-WORT SUPERSTITIONS.
I had
No medicine, sir, to go invisible,
No fern-seed in my pocket.
Ben Jonson.
Most peoples have, in some form or other, preserved the traditionary superstition that fern-seed was miraculously endowed with the power of rendering its possessor invisible. The great hero of our boyish days, the redoubtable "Jack, the Giant-killer," had his "coat of darkness," which conferred upon its proprietor this marvellous peculiarity. In the classical mythology, the helmet given to Hades or Pluto likewise possessed the power of rendering the wearer invisible. In the Teutonic, the "invisible cap" of the Nibelungenlied possessed a similar property.
Shakspere makes Gadshill allude to it in a metaphorical sense. He is anxious to impress upon the mind of the chamberlain of the hostelry, near the scene of Falstaff's famous robbing exploit, that although he was engaged in an illegal enterprise, he was in league with companions of such high social status that the officers of the law would be unable to perceive their criminality if detected. He says:—"We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible." Beaumont and Fletcher, in the "Fair Maid of the Inn," have the following reference to this superstition:—
Had you not Gyges' ring?
Or the herb that gives invisibility?