unknown; but it was reckoned a feat of no small danger, as the person
undertaking it was exposed to the most dreadful assaults from spirits,
who dreaded the effect of this powerful herb in the hands of a cabalist.
Such were the shades, which the original superstition, concerning the.
Fairies, received from the chivalrous sentiments of the middle ages.

[Footnote A:

Ne'er be I found by thee unawed,
On that thrice hallowed eve abroad,
When goblins haunt, from fire and fen.
And wood and lake, the steps of men.
COLLINS'S _Ode to Fear._

The whole history of St John the Baptist was, by our ancestors,
accounted mysterious, and connected with their own superstitions.
The fairy queen was sometimes identified with Herodias.--DELRII
_Disquisitiones Magicae,_ pp. 168. 807. It is amusing to observe with
what gravity the learned Jesuit contends, that it is heresy to believe
that this celebrated figurante (_saltatricula_) still leads choral
dances upon earth!]

[Footnote B: This is alluded to by Shakespeare, and other authors of his
time:

"We have the receipt of _fern-seed_; we walk invisible."
_Henry IV. Part 1st, Act 2d, Sc. 3_.]

IV. An absurd belief in the fables of classical antiquity lent an
additional feature to the character of the woodland spirits of whom we