The _Leech Book of Bald_ was evidently the manual of a Saxon doctor, and he refers to two other doctors--Dun and Oxa by name--who had given him prescriptions. The position of the leech in those days must have been very trying, for he was subjected to the obviously unfair competition of the higher clergy, many of whom enjoyed a reputation for working miraculous cures.[5] The leech being so inferior in position, it is not surprising that his medical knowledge did not advance on scientific lines. He relied on the old heathen superstitions, probably from an instinctive feeling that in pagan religion, combined with the herb lore which had been handed down through the ages, the mass of the people had a deep-rooted faith. Nothing is more obvious in the Leech Book than the fact that the virtues ascribed to the different herbs are based not on the personal knowledge of the writer, but on the old herb lore. This gives the Leech Book its special fascination; for it is the oldest surviving manuscript in which we can learn the herb lore of our ancestors, handed down to them from what dim past ages we can only surmise. We have, therefore, to bear in mind that what may strike our modern minds as quaint, or even grotesque, is in the majority of instances a distorted form of lore which doubtless suffered many changes during the early centuries of our era. Nearly all that is most fascinating in the Leech Book is of very ancient Indo-Germanic or Eastern origin, but one cannot help wondering how much the Saxons incorporated of the herb lore of the ancient Britons. Does not Pliny tell us that the Britons gathered herbs with such striking ceremonies that it would seem as though the Britons had taught them to the Persians?