A further post in my series republishing The Folklore of Herbs (1946), a book by Katherine Oldmeadow, who was a significant figure in the British pagan revival.

CHAPTER VI.

HEALING HERBS.

Growing in field, hedgerow and garden there are healing herbs that for thousands of years have soothed and comforted the aches and pains of man and beast.

One of these comforting herbs is Camomile. The specific name of this well-known field plant is Anthemis, from anthos, a flower; meaning in this case that it is not only a flower, but one well worthy of notice. The Egyptians used it as a physic herb in Biblical times. This daisy-like flower with its yellow centre, white rays and aromatic scent, grows everywhere, and it is said that every part of the plant has healing virtues. Old-fashioned gardeners go so far as to declare that it will act as “doctor” to other plants, and they will place it close to sickly growths and vow that it revives them.

Even the fragrance of this herb was considered healing. In very old herb gardens paths were made of it and mown like grass, so that those who walked there should be revived and refreshed by its aromatic scent.

Lime flowers, too, so beloved by the bees, were made into tea. The French are still very fond of these herbal teas, which they call tisanes. Their favourite is quatre fleurs, made of camomile, lime, borage and orange.

Balm tea is another old favourite, and once mothers would give it to lazy children because it was said to stimulate the idle.

Before eau de Cologne was known, balm was a favourite perfume and, because of its healing fragrance, it was also one of the old strewing herbs used in the days when sweet herbs and green rushes were spread on the floors instead of carpets; and it was this herb that Culpeper desired that every gentlewoman should keep ready in her house to relieve poor and suffering neighbours.

It is a gypsy maxim that wherever a herb grows abundantly it is a herb of virtue; a wise saying that may be easily proved by the observant.

How thickly young nettles grow up everywhere in the spring, and how often herbalists have told us that there is no spring medicine so purifying for the blood.

Coltsfoot is another prolific herb, appearing very early in the year, its little golden faces lighting up the dreariest winter patches. For centuries this plant has been used for the coughs so prevalent in the spring; and it was so well thought of that apothecaries honoured it by painting its flowers on the doorposts of their shops.

Its leaves, shaped like a colt’s foot, were dried and used as tobacco, and its silky, white seeds were collected by poor housewives to stuff their pillows.

Another prolific herb is the dandelion, a plant very valuable for diseases of the heart and liver. It was sometimes called “heart-fever grass”. Its young leaves give flavour as well as virtue to salads. Like little gold suns on the ground, this flower is the shepherd’s clock, opening and closing at regular hours.

Yarrow, a very common field flower, has many healing virtues. It was once called soldiers’ woundwort, because it was used to staunch the blood of warriors. I knew an old man who used to vow that an infusion of the leaves had restored the hairs to his bald head. An old name for the plant is sneezewort, because it is said to act as snuff.

Peppermint, tansy, pennyroyal, horehound and hyssop are all common herbs, and they are country favourites in the making of homely medicines.

Tansy, the herb of St. Athanasius, with its gay little gold, buttony flowers, is often found in old-fashioned gardens, and at one time it was much used in cooking. Tansy puddings, broths, wines and cakes were popular, and tansy tea was used as a tonic.

Celandines, like stars of gold in spring woods, are early flowers to come:

“Telling tales about the sun

When there’s little warmth or none.”

Celandine was much used as a medicine in the past. The greater celandine is still used as a remedy for jaundice. I remember as a child hearing an old country woman boast she had given a neighbour “a new liver.”

This was alarming, for I imagined her tearing out the old one with witch-like fingers! But it turned out that the neighbour had been very ill with jaundice, and the old woman had dosed her and cured her with cups of celandine tea.

Agrimony was another favourite old physic herb, and John Gerard quaintly wrote of it that it was good for “naughty livers.”

Growing over downlands and in other places where the air is pure and sweet, we find the tiny eyebright, a tender little flower pressed close to mother earth, with nine colours in its bright little face.

This flower is credited with the power of restoring sight, and Culpeper declared that if people only knew its virtues all spectacle makers would be ruined. Its Greek name, euphrasia, means joyful, and according to the poet, Milton, when the Archangel Michael wished to show Adam a vision of the future he “purged with euphasy and rue the visual nerve.”

Since Norman times, and even much farther back than that, the elder has been famous for its medicinal virtues. It was believed to be a cure for everything, even the evil eye; in fact, country folk looked upon mother elder as a sort of Apothecaries’ shop conveniently growing in the hedgerows.

Its flowers, leaves and berries were made into cordials, teas, robs and wines, and drunk hot at bedtime to cure colds, and most of us know Hans Andersen’s story about the little boy who got his feet wet: “The Elder Tree Mother.”

The little boy’s mother put him to bed and into a teapot she put some elder flowers to make a warm, comforting cup of elder tea: “The little boy looked at the teapot; he saw the lid rise and the elder flowers spring forth, so fresh and white they were, and they shot out long, thick branches – even out of the spout they shot forth – spreading on all sides, and growing larger and larger, till at last there stood by the bedside a most charming elder bush, a perfect tree, some of its branches stretching over the bed and thrusting the curtain aside. Oh, how full of blossoms was this tree, and how fragrant were those blossoms! and in the midst of the tree sat a kind-looking old dame, wearing the strangest dress in the world. It was green like the elder leaves, with a pattern of large, white elder flower clusters spreading all over it – one could not be sure whether it was actually a gown or real, living green leaves and flowers.”

After this even more wonderful things happened and, when the little boy opened his eyes, there was nothing left but the teapot on the table.

“How pleasant that was,” said the little boy. “Mother, I have been to warm countries.”

“I have no doubt of that,” replied his mother. After you had drunk two brimful cups of good, hot elder tea you were likely enough to get into warm countries.”

“And where is Mother Elder?” asked the boy. “She’s in the teapot,” said his mother,” and there she may stay.”

This story was written at a time when children were given elder-flower tea for chills and colds, and probably, after reading it, naughty children who did not like the decoction would take it without a murmur, because they hoped to be like the little boy and dream of Mother Elder.

The most healing parts of some plants are the roots. Some of the most common of these are burdock, comfrey, couchgrass, dandelion, marshmallow, gentian, Solomon’s seal, valerian, and tormentil.

Before generic names were given to plants herbalists named them for their shapes, believing the shape indicated that it was a medicine intended for the bodily organ it resembled. This was called the plant’s signature and it was the origin of such names as lungwort, which had roots shaped like a lung. Plants with heart-shaped leaves or roots were said to be healing to the heart, and plants bearing red flowers were always used to staunch the bleeding of wounds.

Sometimes the bark of trees has healing virtues. The most common are witch-hazel, willow, cherry and barberry. Other famous barks are cascara, Peruvian bark and slippery elm.

These last are not common to England but are sent to us by the herbalists of their native countries.

Slippery elm, healing and nourishing as a food, was discovered in a remarkable way.

The early colonists in North America knew little about the terrible, long winters in that country, and when the first frost came upon them they had not enough food, and were faced with starvation. They were driven to eat roots and gnaw the bark of trees. One of these trees was the Canadian elm, and the people who ate the bark found, to their amazement, that it not only satisfied their hunger, but gave them strength and vigour.

Seeds are sometimes the valuable part of the herb, and of these are carraway, celery, coriander, fennel, linseed and aniseed.

Of berries there are all the well-known ones of the hedges and moors; blackberries, bilberries, elderberries and juniper, all refreshing and healing to the blood.

Of woods, there is bitter quassia, used sometimes to cure naughty children from biting their nails.

Another physic herb common to the countryside is the foxglove, whose botanical name is digitalis. Strange to say, the earlier herbalists thought little of it as a healing plant and country folk looked upon it as a sort of house for the fairies, because the little people were said to sleep inside its bells. The latter part of its country name, foxglove, probably comes from “glew,” meaning music – the whole giving us “folks’ music,” a pretty name for a pretty idea.

This plant yields a medicine so valuable in certain diseases of the heart that it has saved thousands of lives; so this lovely wayside flower, so long associated with the fairies, has turned out truly to be a magic herb.