Read Ebook: The Old English Herbals by Rohde Eleanour Sinclair

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There are more provisions against diseases of the eye than against any other complaint, and it is probably because of the prevalence of these in olden days that we still have so many of the superstitions connected with springs of water. Both maythen and wild lettuce were used for the eyes. In the following for mistiness of eyes there is a touch of pathos:--

"For mistiness of eyes, many men, lest their eyes should suffer the disease, look into cold water and then are able to see far.... The eyes of an old man are not sharp of sight, then shall he wake up his eyes with rubbings, with walkings, with ridings, either so that a man bear him or convey him in a wain. And they shall use little and careful meats and comb their heads and drink wormwood before they take food. Then shall a salve be wrought for unsharpsighted eyes; take pepper and beat it and a somewhat of salt and wine; that will be a good salve."

One prescription is unique, for the "herb" which one is directed to use is not to be found in any other herbal in existence. This is "rind from Paradise." There is a grim humour about the scribe's comment, and one cannot help wondering what was the origin of the prescription:--

"Some teach us against bite of adder, to speak one word 'faul.' It may not hurt him. Against bite of snake if the man procures and eateth rind which cometh out of Paradise, no venom will hurt him. Then said he that wrote this book that the rind was hard gotten."

Herbs used as amulets have always played a conspicuous part in folk medicine, and our Saxon ancestors used them, as all ancient races have used them, not merely to cure definite diseases but also as protection against the unseen powers of evil, to preserve the eyesight, to cure lunacy, against weariness when going on a journey, against being barked at by dogs, for safety from robbers, and in one prescription even to restore a woman stricken with speechlessness. The use of herbs as amulets to cure diseases has almost died out in this country, but the use of them as charms to ensure good luck survives to this day--notably in the case of white heather and four-leaved clover.

"Eldest of worts Thou hast might for three And against thirty For venom availest For flying vile things, Mighty against loathed ones That through the land rove."

Harleian MS. 585.

If some of the charms have a malignant sound, others were probably as soothing in those days as those gems are still which have survived in our inimitable nursery rhymes.

For instance, the following has for us no meaning, but even in the translation it has something of the curious effect of the words in the original. A woman who cannot rear her child is instructed to say--"Everywhere I carried for me the famous kindred doughty one with this famous meat doughty one, so I will have it for me and go home."

"Loud were they loud, as over the land they rode, Fierce of heart were they, as over the hill they rode. Shield thee now thyself; from this spite thou mayst escape thee! Out little spear if herein thou be! Underneath the linden stood he, underneath the shining shield, While the mighty women mustered up their strength; And the spears they send screaming through the air! Back again to them will I send another. Arrow forth a-flying from the front against them; Out little spear if herein thou be! Sat the smith thereat, smoke a little seax out. Out little spear if herein thou be! Six the smiths that sat there-- making slaughter-spears: Out little spear, in be not spear! If herein there hide flake of iron hard, Of a witch the work, it shall melt away. Wert thou shot into the skin, or shot into the flesh, Wert thou shot into the blood, or shot into the bone, Wert thou shot into the limb-- never more thy life be teased! If it were the shot of Esa, or it were of elves the shot Or it were of hags the shot; help I bring to thee. This to boot for Esa-shot, this to boot for elfin-shot. This to boot for shot of hags! Help I bring to thee. Flee witch to the wild hill top ... ... But thou--be thou hale, and help thee the Lord."

Who were these six smiths and who were the witches? One thinks of that mighty Smith Weyland in the palace of Nidad king of the Niars, of the queen's fear of his flashing eyes and the maiming of him by her cruel orders, and of the cups he made from the skulls of her sons and gems from their eyes. We think of these as old tales, but instinct tells us that they are horribly real. We may not know how that semi-divine smith made himself wings, but that he flew over the palace and never returned we do not doubt for an instant. To the fairy stories which embody such myths children of unnumbered generations have listened, and they demand them over and over again because they, too, are sure that they are real.

Nor is the mystery of numbers lacking in these herbal prescriptions, particularly the numbers three and nine. In the alliterative lay of the nine healing herbs this is very conspicuous. Woden, we are told, smote the serpent with nine magic twigs, the serpent was broken into nine parts, from which the wind blew the nine flying venoms. There are numerous instances of the patient being directed to take nine of each of the ingredients or to take the herb potion itself for three or nine days. Or it is directed that an incantation is to be said or sung three or nine times, or that three or nine masses are to be sung over the herbs. This mystic use of three and nine is conspicuous in the following prescription:--

The leechdom for the use of dwarf elder against a snake-bite runs thus:--

Some of the most remarkable passages in the manuscripts are those concerning the ceremonies to be observed both in the picking and in the administering of herbs. What the mystery of plant life which has so deeply affected the minds of men in all ages and of all civilisations meant to our ancestors, we can but dimly apprehend as we study these ceremonies. They carry us back to that worship of earth and the forces of Nature which prevailed when Woden was yet unborn. That Woden was the chief god of the tribes on the mainland is indisputable, but even in the hierarchy of ancestors reverenced as semi-divine the Saxons themselves looked to Sceaf rather than to Woden, who himself was descended from Sceaf. There are few more haunting legends than that of our mystic forefather, the little boy asleep on a sheaf of corn who, in a richly adorned vessel which moved neither by sails nor oars, came to our people out of the great deep and was hailed by them as their king. Did not Alfred himself claim him as his primeval progenitor, the founder of our race? There is no tangible link between his descendant Woden and the worship of earth, but the sheaf of corn, the symbol of Sceaf, carries us straight back to Nature worship. Sceaf takes his fitting place as the semi-divine ancestor with the lesser divinities such as Hrede and Eostra, goddess of the radiant dawn. It is to this age that the ceremonies in the picking of the herbs transport us, to the mystery of the virtues of herbs, the fertility of earth, the never-ceasing conflict between the beneficent forces of sun and summer and the evil powers of the long, dark northern winters. Closely intertwined with Nature worship we find the later Christian rites and ceremonies. For the new teaching did not oust the old, and for many centuries the mind of the average man halted half-way between the two faiths. If he accepted Christ he did not cease to fear the great hierarchy of unseen powers of Nature, the worship of which was bred in his very bone. The ancient festivals of Yule and Eostra continued under another guise and polytheism still held its sway. The devil became one with the gloomy and terrible in Nature, with the malignant elves and dwarfs. Even with the warfare between the beneficent powers of sun and the fertility of Nature and the malignant powers of winter, the devil became associated. Nor did men cease to believe in the Wyrd, that dark, ultimate fate goddess who, though obscure, lies at the back of all Saxon belief. It was in vain that the Church preached against superstitions. Egbert, Archbishop of York, in his Penitential, strictly forbade the gathering of herbs with incantations and enjoined the use of Christian rites, but it is probable that even when these manuscripts were written, the majority at least of the common folk in these islands, though nominally Christian, had not deserted their ancient ways of thought. When the Saxon peasant went to gather his healing herbs he may have used Christian prayers and ceremonies, but he did not forget the goddess of the dawn. It is noteworthy how frequently we find the injunction that the herbs must be picked at sunrise or when day and night divide, how often stress is laid upon looking towards the east, and turning "as the sun goeth from east to south and west." In many there is the instruction that the herb is to be gathered "without use of iron" or "with gold and with hart's horn" . It is curious how little there is of moon lore. In some cases the herbs are to be gathered in silence, in others the man who gathers them is not to look behind him--a prohibition which occurs frequently in ancient superstitions. The ceremonies are all mysterious and suggestive, but behind them always lies the ancient ineradicable worship of Nature. To what dim past does that cry, "Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth" carry us?

"Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth! May the All-Wielder, Ever Lord grant thee Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing Pregnant and plenteous in strength; Hosts of shafts and of glittering plants! Of broad barley the blossoms And of white wheat ears waxing, Of the whole earth the harvest! Let be guarded the grain against all the ills That are sown o'er the land by the sorcery men, Nor let cunning women change it nor a crafty man."

And that other ancient verse:--

"Hail be thou, Earth, Mother of men! In the lap of the God be thou a-growing! Be filled with fodder for fare-need of men!"

Even in a twelfth-century herbal we find a prayer to Earth, and it is so beautiful that I close this chapter with it:--

"Earth, divine goddess, Mother Nature who generatest all things and bringest forth anew the sun which thou hast given to the nations; Guardian of sky and sea and of all gods and powers and through thy power all nature falls silent and then sinks in sleep. And again thou bringest back the light and chasest away night and yet again thou coverest us most securely with thy shades. Thou dost contain chaos infinite, yea and winds and showers and storms; thou sendest them out when thou wilt and causest the seas to roar; thou chasest away the sun and arousest the storm. Again when thou wilt thou sendest forth the joyous day and givest the nourishment of life with thy eternal surety; and when the soul departs to thee we return. Thou indeed art duly called great Mother of the gods; thou conquerest by thy divine name. Thou art the source of the strength of nations and of gods, without thee nothing can be brought to perfection or be born; thou art great queen of the gods. Goddess! I adore thee as divine; I call upon thy name; be pleased to grant that which I ask thee, so shall I give thanks to thee, goddess, with one faith.

"Hear, I beseech thee, and be favourable to my prayer. Whatsoever herb thy power dost produce, give, I pray, with goodwill to all nations to save them and grant me this my medicine. Come to me with thy powers, and howsoever I may use them may they have good success and to whomsoever I may give them. Whatever thou dost grant it may prosper. To thee all things return. Those who rightly receive these herbs from me, do thou make them whole. Goddess, I beseech thee; I pray thee as a suppliant that by thy majesty thou grant this to me.

"Now I make intercession to you all ye powers and herbs and to your majesty, ye whom Earth parent of all hath produced and given as a medicine of health to all nations and hath put majesty upon you, be, I pray you, the greatest help to the human race. This I pray and beseech from you, and be present here with your virtues, for she who created you hath herself promised that I may gather you into the goodwill of him on whom the art of medicine was bestowed, and grant for health's sake good medicine by grace of your powers. I pray grant me through your virtues that whatsoe'er is wrought by me through you may in all its powers have a good and speedy effect and good success and that I may always be permitted with the favour of your majesty to gather you into my hands and to glean your fruits. So shall I give thanks to you in the name of that majesty which ordained your birth."

FOOTNOTES:

A catalogue of the books of that foundation cited by Wanley contains the entry "Medicinale Anglicum," and the MS. described above has on a fly-leaf the now almost illegible inscription "Medicinale Anglicum." There is unfortunately no record as to the books which, on the dissolution of the monasteries, may possibly have found their way from Glastonbury to the royal library.

This chapter consists of prescriptions containing drugs such as a resident in Syria would recommend. It is interesting to find this illustration of Asser's statement, that he had seen and read the letters which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent with presents to the king. From Asser also we learn that King Alfred kept a book in which he himself entered "little flowers culled on every side from all sorts of masters." "Flosculos undecunque collectos a quibus libet magistris et in corpore unius libelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc suppetebat redigere."--ASSER, p. 57.

The stories of miraculous cures by famous Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots are for the most part too well known to be worth quoting, but the unfair treatment of the leech is perhaps nowhere more clearly shown than in Bede's tale of St. John of Beverley curing a boy with a diseased head. Although the leech effected the cure, the success was attributed to the bishop's benediction, and the story ends, "the youth became of a clear countenance, ready in speech and with hair beautifully wavy."

Cratevas is said to have lived in the first century B.C. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all quote him.

On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting--

"This boucke with letters is wr Of it you cane no languige make. Ba C. A happie end if thou dehre to make Remember still thyn owne esstate, If thou desire in Christ to die Thenn well to lead thy lif applie barbara crokker."

It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from "barbara crokker." Her na?ve avowal of her inability to read the MS. suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley's reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of ?12 a year could buy Saxon manuscripts!

The directions for the vapour bath are given in such a brief and yet forceful way that I cannot imagine anyone reading it without feeling at the end as though he had run breathlessly to collect the herbs, and then prepared the bath and finally made the ley of alder ashes to wash the unfortunate patient's head. Like all these cheerful Saxon prescriptions, this one ends with the comforting assurance "it will soon be well with him," and one wonders whether in this, as in many other cases, the patient got well in order to avoid his friends' ministrations. The prescription for a vapour bath made with herbs runs thus:--

"Take bramble rind and elm rind, ash rind, sloethorn, rind of apple tree and ivy, all these from the nether part of the trees, and cucumber, smear wort, everfern, helenium, enchanters nightshade, betony, marrubium, radish, agrimony. Scrape the worts into a kettle and boil strongly. When it hath strongly boiled remove it off the fire and seat the man over it and wrap the man up that the vapour may get up nowhere, except only that the man may breathe; beathe him with these fomentations as long as he can bear it. Then have another bath ready for him, take an emmet bed all at once, a bed of those male emmets which at whiles fly, they are red ones, boil them in water, beathe him with it immoderately hot. Then make him a salve. Take worts of each kind of those above mentioned, boil them in butter, smear the sore limbs, they will soon quicken. Make him a ley of alder ashes, wash his head with this cold, it will soon be well with him, and let the man get bled every month when the moon is five and fifteen and twenty nights old."

In an incantation against fever we find the instruction:--

"The sick man ... thou shalt place ... thou shalt cover his face Burn cypress and herbs ... That the great gods may remove the evil That the evil spirit may stand aside . . . . . . . May a kindly spirit a kindly genius be present."

It is interesting to find the same beliefs amongst the ancient Babylonians.

Even modern science has not yet succeeded in solving some of the mysteries connected with this remarkable plant. For instance, although the apple and the pear are closely related, mistletoe very rarely grows on the pear tree, and there is no case on record of mistletoe planted on a pear tree by human hands surviving the stage of germination. There are, it is true, two famous mistletoe pears in this country--one in the garden of Belvoir Castle and the other in the garden of Fern Lodge, Malvern, but in both cases the seed was sown naturally. It grows very rarely on the oak, and this possibly accounts for the special reverence accorded by the Druids to the mistletoe oak.

This closely resembles a Cornish charm for a tetter.

"Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers, God bless the flesh and preserve the bone; Perish thou, tetter, and be thou gone. Tetter, tetter, thou hast eight brothers."

St. Eloy, in a sermon preached in A.D. 640, also forbade the enchanting of herbs:--

"Before all things I declare and testify to you that you shall observe none of the impious customs of the pagans, neither sorcerers, nor diviners, nor soothsayers, nor enchanters, nor must you presume for any cause to enquire of them.... Let none regulate the beginning of any piece of work by the day or by the moon. Let none trust in nor presume to invoke the names of daemons, neither Neptune, nor Orcus, nor Diana, nor Minerva, nor Geniscus nor any other such follies.... Let no Christian place lights at the temples or the stones, or at fountains, or at trees, or at places where three ways meet.... Let none presume to hang amulets on the neck of man or beast.... Let no one presume to make lustrations, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pass through a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth; for by so doing he seems to consecrate them to the devil. Let none on the kalends of January join in the wicked and ridiculous things, the dressing like old women or like stags, nor make feasts lasting all night, nor keep up the custom of gifts and intemperate drinking. Let no one on the festival of St. John or on any of the festivals join in the solstitia or dances or leaping or caraulas or diabolical songs."--From a sermon preached by St. Eloy in A.D. 640.

A Christian prayer for a blessing on herbs runs thus:--

"Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui ab initio mundi omnia instituisti et creasti tam arborum generibus quam herbarum seminibus quibus etiam benedictione tua benedicendo sanxisti eadem nunc benedictione olera aliosque fructus sanctificare ac benedicere digneris ut sumentibus ex eis sanitatem conferant mentis et corporis ac tutelam defensionis eternamque uitam per saluatorem animarum dominum nostrum iesum christum qui uiuit et regnat dominus in secula seculorum. Amen."

LATER MANUSCRIPT HERBALS AND THE EARLY PRINTED HERBALS

Between the Anglo-Saxon herbals and the early printed herbals there is a great gulf. After the Norman Conquest the old Anglo-Saxon lore naturally fell into disrepute, although the Normans were inferior to the Saxons in their knowledge of herbs. The learned books of the conquerors were written exclusively in Latin, and it is sad to think of the number of beautiful Saxon books which must have been destroyed, for when the Saxons were turned out of their own monasteries the Normans who supplanted them probably regarded books written in a language they did not understand as mere rubbish. Much of the old Saxon herb lore is to be found in the leech books of the Middle Ages, but, with one notable exception, no important original treatise on herbs by an English writer has come down to us from that period. The vast majority of the herbal MSS. are merely transcriptions of Macer's herbal, a mediaeval Latin poem on the virtues of seventy-seven plants, which is believed to have been written in the tenth century. The popularity of this poem is shown by the number of MSS. still extant. It was translated into English as early as the twelfth century with the addition of "A fewe herbes wyche Macer tretyth not." In 1373 it was translated by John Lelamoure, a schoolmaster of Hertford. On folio 55 of the MS. of this translation is the inscription, "God gracious of grauntis havythe yyeue and ygrauted vertuys in woodys stonys and herbes of the whiche erbis Macer the philosofure made a boke in Latyne the whiche boke Johannes Lelamoure scolemaistre of Herforde est, they he unworthy was in the yere of oure Lorde a. m. ccc. lxxiij tournyd in to Ynglis." Macer's herbal is also the basis of a treatise in rhyme of which there are several copies in England and one in the Royal Library at Stockholm. This treatise, which deals with twenty-four herbs, begins thus quaintly--

"Of erbs xxiiij I woll you tell by and by Als I fond wryten in a boke at I in boroyng toke Of a gret ladys preste of gret name she barest."

The poem begins with a description of betony, powerful against "wykked sperytis," and then treats, amongst other herbs, of the virtues of centaury, marigold, celandine, pimpernel, motherwort, vervain, periwinkle, rose, lily, henbane, agrimony, sage, rue, fennel and violet. It is pleasant to find the belief that only to look on marigolds will draw evil humours out of the head and strengthen the eyesight.

"Golde is bitter in savour Fayr and ?elw is his flowur Ye golde flour is good to sene It makyth ye syth bryth and clene Wyscely to lokyn on his flowris Drawyth owt of ye heed wikked hirores . . . . . . . . Loke wyscely on golde erly at morwe Yat day fro feueres it schall ye borwe: Ye odour of ye golde is good to smelle."

The instructions for the picking of this joyous flower are given at length. It must be taken only when the moon is in the sign of the Virgin, and not when Jupiter is in the ascendant, for then the herb loses its virtue. And the gatherer, who must be out of deadly sin, must say three Pater Nosters and three Aves. Amongst its many virtues we find that it gives the wearer a vision of anyone who has robbed him. The virtues of vervain also are many; it must be picked "at Spring of day" in "ye monyth of May." Periwinkle is given its beautiful old name "joy of the ground" and the description runs thus:--

"Parwynke is an erbe grene of colour In tyme of May he beryth blo flour, His stalkys ain so feynt and feye Yet never more growyth he heye ."

Under sage we find the old proverb--"How can a man die who has sage in his garden?"

"Why of seknesse deyeth man Whill sawge in gardeyn he may han."

A manuscript of exceptional interest is one describing the virtues of rosemary which was sent by the Countess of Hainault to her daughter Philippa, Queen of England, and apart from its intrinsic interest it is important from the fact that it is obviously the original of the very poetical discourse on rosemary in the first printed English herbal, commonly known as Banckes's herbal. Moreover, in this MS. there is recorded an old tradition which I have not found in any other herbal, but which is still current amongst old-fashioned country folk, namely, that rosemary "passeth not commonly in highte the highte of Criste whill he was man on Erthe," and that when the plant attains the age of thirty-three years it will increase in breadth but not in height. It is the oldest MS. in which we find many other beliefs about rosemary that still survive in England. There is a tradition that Queen Philippa's mother sent the first plants of rosemary to England, and in a copy of this MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the translator, "danyel bain," says that rosemary was unknown in England until the Countess of Hainault sent some to her daughter.

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