The Book of Herbs, Rosalind Northcote [best books to read for self development TXT] 📗
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[74] Hentzner’s “Travels.”
[75] Barnaby Googe’s “Husbandry” (1578).
[76] “History of the Rebellion.”
[77] Parkinson.
Rue (Ruta graveolens).For you there’s Rosemary and Rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long,
Grace and remembrance to you both.
Winter’s Tale, iv. 3.
I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
Richard II., iii. 4.
There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’Sundays O! you may wear your rue with a difference.
Hamlet, iv. 5.
... then purged with euphrasy and rue,
The visual nerve; for he had much to see.
Paradise Lost, book xi.
He who sows hatred, shall gather rue.
Danish Proverb.
“Ruth was the English name for sorrow and remorse, and to rue was to be sorry for anything or to have pity, ... and so it was a natural thing to say that a plant which was so bitter and had always borne the name Rue or Ruth must be connected with repentance. It was therefore the Herb of Repentance, and this was soon transformed into the Herb of Grace.”[78] Canon Ellacombe’s explanation makes clear why rue was often alluded to symbolically, especially by Shakespeare, to whom the thought of repentance leading to grace seems to have been an accustomed one. It has been often stated the actual origin of the name was the fact that rue was used to make “the aspergillum, or holy-water brush, in the ceremony known as the asperges, which usually precedes the Sunday celebration of High Mass; but for this supposition there is no ground.”[79] Rue was supposed to be a powerful defence against witches, and was used in many spells, and Mr Friend describes a “magic wreath” in which it is used by girls for divination. The wreath is made up of Rue, Willow and Crane’s-bill. “Walking backwards to a tree they throw the wreath over their heads, until it catches on the branches and is held fast. Each time they fail to fix the wreath means another year of single blessedness.” In the Tyrol, a bunch of Rue, Broom, Maidenhair, Agrimony and Ground Ivy will enable the wearer to see witches. Lupton adds a tribute to its powers of magic: “That[80] Pigeons be not hunted nor killed of Cats at the windowes, or at every passage and at every Pigeon’s hole, hang or put little Branches of Rew, for Rew hath a marvellous strength against wilde Beasts. As Didymus doth say.” Milton refers to a belief, very widely spread, that Rue was specially good for the eyes, when he says:
... purged with Euphrasie and Rue,
The visual nerve.
that Adam’s eyes should be made clear. (Euphrasie is Eyebright.) Rue was also an antidote to poison, and preserved people from contagion, particularly that of the plague, and was thought to be of great virtue for many disorders. “Some doe rippe up a beade-rowle of the vertues of Rue, as Macer the poet and others” who apparently declared it to be good for almost every ill. Mr Britten remarks: “It was long, and probably still is the custom to strew the dock of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey with Rue. It arose in 1750, when the contagious disease known as jail fever, raged in Newgate to a great extent. It may be remembered that during the trial of the Mannings (1849), the unhappy woman, after one of the speeches of the opposing counsel, gathered up some of the sprigs of Rue which lay before her, and threw them at his head.”
Turner recommends Rue “made hott in the pyll of a pomegranate” for the “ake of the eares.”
[78] “Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare,” Canon Ellacombe.
[79] Britten.
[80] “Book of Notable Things” (1575).
Southernwood (Artemisa Abrotanum).Sothernwood and Angelica don’t stay,
Plantain, the Thistle, which they blessed call,
And useful Wormwood, in their order fall.
Of Plants, book i.—Cowley.
Who gathers me, more sweetness than he’d dream
Without me—more than any lily could.
I, that am flowerless, being Southernwood.
Or lad’s love to wear?
Or a wreath less fair to see,
Juniper and Rosemary?
Flaxenhair?
What was lief and fair,
Lad’s love, sweet thro’ fear and fret,
Lad’s love, green and living yet,
Flaxenhair.
Finnish Bride Song.—N. Hopper.
Southernwood has many sobriquets, among which are Lads or Boy’s Love, Old Man, and Maiden’s Ruin; the last a corruption of Armoise du Rône, Mr Friend says. The French have contracted the same title to Auronne and also call the plant Bois de St Jean and Citronelle. Dutch people used to call it Averonne (another form of the French contraction) and the Germans, Stab-wurtz. The name Bois de St Jean is given it, because in some parts of France it is one of the plants dedicated to St John the Baptist, and the German title came from their faith in it as a “singular wound-hearb.” Turner considered that the fumes of it being burned, would drive away serpents, and credits it with many valuable properties, chiefly medicinal; and Culpepper calls it “a gallant, mercurial plant, worthy of more esteem than it hath.” It has also been supposed to have great virtue to prevent the hair falling out. In later days Hogg has declared it to have an agreeable, exhilarating smell,” and to be “eminently diaphoretic.” But Thornton, who loves to shatter all favourite herbal notions, remarks that these good results are chiefly because it “operates on the mind of the patient,” and that as a fomentation it is hardly more useful “than cloths wrung out of hot water.” So transitory is good report!
Wood-ruff (Asperula Odorata).A way is huere wynter wo
When woodrove springeth.
Springtide, 1300.
Be buried with her....
Pansies for thoughts, and wood-ruff white as she,
And, for remembrance, quiet rosemary.
Elegy.—Hopper.
The wood-ruff or wood-rowell has its leaves “set about like a star, or the rowell of a spurre,” whereby it gains its name. English people also called it Wood-rose and Sweet-Grass; the French, Hépatique étoilée, and the Germans, Waldmeister and Herzfreude, and they steep it in “Bohle,” a kind of “cup” made of light wine.
In England it used to be “made up into garlands or bundles and hanged up in houses in the heate of summer, doth very wel attemper the aire, coole and make fresh the place, to the delight and comfort of such as are therein.”[81] Wood-ruff was employed to decorate churches, and churchwardens’ accounts still exist (at St Mary-atte-Hill, London) including wood-ruff garlands and lavender in the expenses incurred in keeping St Barnabas’ Day. Johnston says[82]: “The dried leaves are put among linen for their sweet smell, and children put a whorl between the leaves of their books with a like purpose, and many people like to have one neatly dried laid in the case of their watch.” Sensible, as well as pretty customs! It was one of the herbs recommended to “make the hart merrye,” and Tusser puts it among his “stilling herbs,” thus: “Wood-roffe, for sweet waters and cakes.” Country people used to lay it a little bruised to a cut, and its odour of new made hay must have made it a pleasanter remedy than many that they used.
[81] Gerarde.
[82] “Botany of the Eastern Borders” (1853).
Wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium).The Stoa’s Pillars on my stalk rely;
Let others please, to profit is my pleasure.
The love I slowly gain’s a lasting treasure.
Of Plants, book i.—Cowley.
In places infected than wormwood and rue
It is as a comfort for heart and the brain,
And therefore to have it, it is not in vain.
July’s Husbandry.—Tusser.
In magic often used;
Mugwort and nightshade for the same,
But not by me abused
Muses’ Elysium.—Drayton.
Traditions cluster round Artemisia Absinthium and A. Vulgaris, Mugwort. Canon Ellacombe says that the species are called after Diana, as she was supposed to “find them and delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron the Centaur... who named these worts from the name of Diana, Artemis;” and he thinks therefore that “Dian’s bud,” spoken of in the Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of them. The plant was of some importance among the Mexicans, and when they kept the festival of Huixtocihuatl, the Goddess of Salt, they began with a great dance of women, who were joined to one another by strings of different flowers, and who wore on their heads garlands of wormwood. This dance continued all night, and on the following morning the dance of the priests began. (Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1879.)
According to the ancients, Wormwood counteracts the effects of poisoning by toadstools, hemlock, and the biting of the shrew mouse or sea-dragon; while Mugwort preserves the wayfarer from fatigue, sun-stroke, wild beasts, the Evil Eye in man, and also from evil spirits! Lupton says that it is “commonly affirmed that, on Midsummer Eve, there is found at the root of Mugwort a coal which keeps safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, and the quartan ague, them that bear the same about them; and Mizaldus, the writer hereof, saith that it is to be found the same day under the Plantain, which is especially and chiefly to be found at noon.”[83] Later writers have unkindly insisted that these wonderful “coals” were no more nor less than old dead roots! Gerarde and Parkinson are both dignified and contemptuous over these stories. Gerarde says, “Many other fantasticall devices invented by poets are to be seen in the works of ancient writers. I do of purpose omit them,
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