The Book of Herbs, Rosalind Northcote [best books to read for self development TXT] 📗
- Author: Rosalind Northcote
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Will make a hedge to last for ever.
And it is a common tradition that an Elder stake will last in the ground longer than an iron bar the same size. Several very different musical instruments have been alike named “Sambuke,” because they were all made out of Elder-wood. Elder-berries have also wonderful properties. In Styria, on “Bertha Night (6th January), the devil goes about with special virulence. As a safeguard persons are recommended to make a magic circle, in the centre of which they should stand, with Elder-berries gathered on St John’s night. By doing this, the mystic Fern-seed may be obtained, which possesses the strength of thirty or forty men. There are no instructions as to why or how the desired Fern-seed should arrive, and all the proceedings are somewhat mysterious.”
[101] Folkard.
The most extraordinary collection of charms and receipts is to be found in an old book, called Le petit Albert; probably the contents are largely gleaned from out the wondrous lore set forth by Albertus Magnus. A charm—it must be a charm, for a mere recipe could hardly achieve such results, “pour s’enrichir par la pêche des poissons” is made by mixing Nettles, Cinquefoil, and the juice of Houseleek, with corn boiled in water of Thyme and Marjoram, and if this composition is put into a net, the net will soon be filled with fish. Cinquefoil appears in many spells, particularly as a magic herb in love-divinations, and also against agues! Some parts of the book shed a lurid light on the customs of the day, as for instance, recipes “to render a man or woman insensible to torture.” Here is a less ghastly extract. “Je quitte des matières violentes pour dire un Mot de Paix. J’ai lû dans le très curieux livre des Secrets du Roi Jean d’Arragon, que si aucun dans le mois de septembre, ayant observé le temps que le soleil est entré au signe de la Vierges a soin de cueillir de la fleur Soucy (Marigold) qu’a été appellé par les Anciens, Epouse du Soleil, and si on l’enveloppe dedans des feuilles de Laurier avec un dent de Loup, personne ne pourra parler mal de celui qui les portera sur luy et vivra dans un profonde paix et tranquillité avec tout le monde.” There is an odd, little passage about the supernatural beings who inhabit the four elements, Salamanders, Nymphs, Sylphs, and Gnomes, and the practices of Lapland miners to obtain “la bienveillance des Gnomes.” This is managed through observing their love of perfumes. Each day of the week a certain perfume was burnt for them and these odours had an elaborate formula, compiled with reference to the planets. Thus Sunday’s perfume is “sous les auspices du soleil,” and contains Saffron and Musk; Monday’s is made of the Moon’s special plants and includes the seed of the White Poppy; and the ingredients for each are equally appropriate to the ruling planet. Mars has Hellebore and Euphorbia in his perfume; Venus, dried roses, red coral, and ambergris; and Saturn, black poppy seeds, Mandrake roots and Henbane. In an English translation (there are many editions of Le petit Albert) fifteen magical herbs of the Ancients are given, but I will only quote two.
“The eleventh hearbe is named of the Chaldees Isiphilon... or Englishmen, Centory... this hearbe hath a marvellous virtue, for if it be joined with the blood of a female lapwing or black plover and put with oile in a lamp, all they that compasse it about shall believe themselves to be witches, so that one shall believe of another that his head is in heaven and his feete on earth.”
“If ⁂ the fourteenth hearbe, smallage, be bounden to an oxe’s necke, he will follow thee whithersoever thou wilt go.” The last instructions lead one to agree with the poet:
When ruffs and raids were in the fashion,”
and when views of mine and thine were less rigid than they are to-day.
CHAPTER VIIOF HERBS AND BEASTS
And search out simples to procure thy heal,
What sundry virtues, sundry herbs do yield,
’Gainst grief which may thy sheep or thee assail.
Eclogue vii.—Drayton.
The sodain rising of the raging seas,
The soothe of byrdes by beating of their winges,
The powre of herbes, both which can hurt and ease;
And which be wont t’enrage the restless sheepe,
And which be wont to worke eternal sleepe.
Shepheard’s Calendar.—Spenser.
All down the boreen, long and low,
The tramp of ragweed horses’ feet,
And Una’s laughter wild and sweet.
The Passing of the Shee.—N. Hopper.
Herbs and animals may appear linked together in many aspects, but there are two in which I specially wish to look at them—first, glancing at the old traditions that tell of beasts and birds themselves having preferences among herbs; secondly, the human reasoning, which decreed that certain plants must benefit or affect special creatures. The glamour of magic at times hovers over both. Ragwort is St James’s Wort (the French call it Jacobée), and St James is the patron saint of horses, therefore Ragwort is good for horses, and has even gained the name of the Staggerwort, from being often prescribed for “the staggers.” This is a good specimen of the reasoning, but there is romance about the plant which is far more attractive. Besides being good for horses, it is actually the witches’ own horse! There is a high granite rock called the Castle Peak, south of the Logan Rock in Cornwall, where, as tales run, witches were specially fond of gathering, and thither they rode on moonlight nights on a stem of Ragwort. In Ireland, it is the fairies ride it, and there it is sometimes called the Fairy’s Horse.
Tread down the drift of the apple blow,
Ride your ragweed horse to the Isle of Wobles.
Ragwort is specially beloved by the Leprehauns, or Clauricanes, the little fairy cobblers, who are sometimes seen singing or whistling over their work on a tiny shoe. They wear “deeshy-daushy” leather aprons, and usually red nightcaps.
Busy click of an elfin hammer,
Voice of the Lepracaun singing shrill,
As he merrily plies his trade.
W. B. Yeats.
There is a very nice legend of the Field of Boliauns, which turns on the belief that every Leprehaun has a hidden treasure buried under a ragwort. And if anyone can catch the little man, and not for one second take his eyes off him until the plant is reached, the Leprehaun must show him exactly where to dig for it. In the Isle of Man, they used to tell of another steed, not the fairies’ horse, but a fairy or enchanted horse, ridden by mortals. If anyone on St John’s Eve, they said, trod on a plant of St John’s Wort after sunset, the horse would spring out of the earth, and carry him about till sunrise, and there leave him wherever they chanced at that moment to be.
William Coles[102] speaks with great decision as to the various remedies which animals find for themselves. “If the Asse be oppressed with melancholy, he eats of the herbe Asplenium... so the wilde Goats being shot with Darts or Arrows, cure themselves with Dittany, which Herb hath the power to worke them out of the Body and to heale up the wound.” Gerarde adds that the “Deere in Candie” seek the same remedy, and Parkinson remarks of Hemp Agrimony, “It is sayd that hunters have observed that Deere being wounded by the eating of this herbe have been healed of their hurts.” Drayton’s Hermit refers to dictam or dittany.
Shot shafts and darts expelling.
Shelley is less definite. He only laments:
In which its heart cure lies.
[102] “Art of Simpling.”
Goats do not seek Sea-Holly as a remedy, but it has a startling effect upon them if, by accident, they touch it. “They report that the herb Sea-Holly (Eryngium maritimum), if one goat take it into her mouth, it causeth her first to stand still, and afterwards the whole flocke, untill such time as the Shepherd take it forth of her mouth, as Plutarch writeth.”[103] However much these wild theories may exceed facts as to animals curing themselves, they are not altogether without reason, for the instinct of beasts leading them to healing herbs has often been noticed. Evelyn says: “I have heard of one Signior Jaquinto, Physician to Queen Anne (Mother of the Blessed Martyr, Charles the First), and was so to one of the Popes. That observing the Scurvy and Dropsy to be the Epidemical and Dominent Diseases of this Nation, he went himself into the Hundreds of Essex (reputed the most unhealthy County of this Island), and us’d to follow the Sheep and Cattell on purpose to observe what Plants they chiefly fed upon; and of those Simples compos’d an excellent Electuary of extraordinary Effects against those Infirmities.
[103] Gerarde.
“Thus we are told, that the Vertue of the Cophee was discover’d by marking what the Goats so greedily brutted upon. So Æsculapius is said to have restor’d dismember’d Hippolitus by applying some simples, he observ’d a Serpent to have us’d another dead Serpent.” The last instance sounds mythical! But goats have really more than once led mankind to some useful bit of knowledge. There is a Chilian plant, Boldo, a tincture of the leaves of which are frequently administered in France for hepatic complaints, and this is the history of the discovery of its virtues. “The goats in Chili had been for many years subject to enlargement of the liver, and the owners of the flocks had begun to despair of them as a source of revenue, until it was observed that certain flocks were exempt from the complaint, whilst others in adjacent districts continued subject to it. It was ultimately discovered that the goats browsing in fields where Boldo grew were never a prey to hepatic diseases, and the herb became gradually known and used, first by South American and then by French druggists.” Boldo is little used in England.
Sheep seek Dandelions; and Miss Anne Pratt quotes an agricultural report, describing how some weakly lambs were moved into a field full of Dandelions in flower, and how rapidly the conspicuous blossoms were devoured. Finally, as the flowers grew fewer and fewer, the lambs were seen pushing one another away from the coveted plants, and in this field they speedily gained in health and strength. Valerianella Olitaria is said to be a favourite food of lambs, and so gains its name of Lambs’ Lettuce. Shepherds and flocks have always been favourite subjects for poetry, and Drayton touches them very prettily:—
Coming as white as January’s snow,
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