Slunk calves and moonwort

Grose recorded the belief, commonly acted on in Suffolk, that a slunk or stillborn calf buried in a highway used by cattle would stop cows casting their calves. Lupton said mouse-ear given to horses kept them from harm while the smith shod them, and Coles that a footman with mugwort in his shoes could walk forty miles before noon without tiring. Moonwort was believed to open locks and to pull the shoes off horses that walked where it grew, and Culpeper told how the Earl of Essex’s horses lost their shoes on White Down near Tiverton.