Note 417 — Chapter LII

Moryson, part iii. book iii. chaps. i. and v.; O’Sullivan, tom. iii. lib. viii. cap. 6; Four Masters, 1603. In describing his visit to Lecale at the beginning of 1603, Bodley casually remarks that the Irish soldiers ate grass—vescuntur gramine. Moryson says the wild Irish ‘willingly eat the herb shamrock, being of a sharp taste, which as they run and are chased to and fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches.’ This passage is conclusive proof that the wood-sorrel was called shamrock in the sixteenth century; see above, note to chap. xxxix. Modern claimants to the title of shamrock are the white clover, the common trefoil (medicago lupulina), and the bog-bean (menyanthes trifoliata); but none of these are edible by men.