[147] Particulars may be found in my “English Plant Names from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century,” Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1880.

[148] The medical treatises have been collected in three volumes (Rolls Series) by Mr. Cockayne, under the title of “Saxon Leechdoms.”

[149] There are four copies of it in the Cotton Library, and one in Cambridge University library; some also in other collections. It has been printed from a Cotton manuscript written, the editor says, about A.D. 990. “Popular Treatises on Science,” edited by T. Wright, 1841.

[150] “La Chanson de Roland,” par Léon Gautier, ed. 7 (1880), Introduction.

[151] This poem, of which there are many external traces, had long been given up as lost, was deplored by Tyrwhitt and by Ritson, and was accidentally discovered in a Bodleian manuscript, latent amidst legends of saints. From this unique MS. it was edited by Sir F. Madden; and again (1868) by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, who says in his preface:—“There can be little doubt that the tradition must have existed from Anglo-Saxon times, but the earliest mention of it is presented to us in the French version of the Romance.... The story is in no way connected with France; ... From every point of view, ... the story is wholly English,” p. iv.

[152] An old English Miscellany, containing a “Bestiary,” &c., ed. R. Morris (E.E.T.S.), 1872, p. 17. The “Phisiologus” is quoted in Chaucer, apparently from this very “Bestiary”; and Dr. Morris says that scraps of it are found even in Elizabethan writers. I add a translation of the piece quoted:—“Whilst that weather is so bad, the ships that are driven about on the sea (death is unwelcome, men love to live) look about them and see this fish; they ween it is an island. They are very glad of it, and with all their might they draw towards it, make the ships fast, and all go ashore. With stone and steel and tinder they make a good fire on this monster, and warm themselves well, and eat and drink; the whale feels the fire and makes them sink, for he quickly dives to the bottom, he kills them all without wound.”

INDEX.