[30] "We have the receipt of fern-seed. We walk invisible."--
Shakespeare, Henry IV. See Ralston, Songs of the Russian
People, p. 98

According to one North German tradition, the luck-flower also
will make its finder invisible at pleasure. But, as the myth
shrewdly adds, it is absolutely essential that the flower be
found by accident: he who seeks for it never finds it! Thus
all cavils are skilfully forestalled, even if not
satisfactorily disposed of. The same kind of reasoning is
favoured by our modern dealers in mystery: somehow the
"conditions" always are askew whenever a scientific observer
wishes to test their pretensions.

In the North of Europe schamir appears strangely and
grotesquely metamorphosed. The hand of a man that has been
hanged, when dried and prepared with certain weird unguents
and set on fire, is known as the Hand of Glory; and as it not
only bursts open all safe-locks, but also lulls to sleep all
persons within the circle of its influence, it is of course
invaluable to thieves and burglars. I quote the following
story from Thorpe's "Northern Mythology": "Two fellows once
came to Huy, who pretended to be exceedingly fatigued, and
when they had supped would not retire to a sleeping-room, but
begged their host would allow them to take a nap on the
hearth. But the maid-servant, who did not like the looks of
the two guests, remained by the kitchen door and peeped
through a chink, when she saw that one of them drew a thief's
hand from his pocket, the fingers of which, after having
rubbed them with an ointment, he lighted, and they all burned