The Hawthorn bushes are laden down with bright scarlet berries food for the Blackbirds and finches, they have the proven benefit to those with heart problems, gathered by Monks for their still-rooms to make potions, by Hedge witches to grind into pastes, given out as pills carefully wrapped in a small piece of linen cloth...the Crab Apple tree by Paddy's pen has branches bowed under the weight of wrinkled pale pink and green apples...impossible to pick because of the deep ditch... they stay until the leaves fall and then gradually disappear... eaten by the Mistle Thrushes, who snatch mouthfuls of almost rotting fruit...gulping the sweet flesh down as though it will be their last meal of the encroaching winter.
The Valerian has long since gone to seed... as a sleeping draught in times long past, there was nothing like Valerian, prized also to soothe a troubled mind, it was an important herbal... as has the St. Johns Wort, which grows in wild profusion along our street, said to be the most gentle of herbs to combat depression, it is powerful and much care ought to be taken before using it...there is Marjoram, but that too is a memory now. They'll come back again next year, along with the Horse-Tail used for scouring pots and pans and the Ox-Eye daisies, their faces turned to the sun.
There are only the stalks left now of the heady scented Meadow-Sweet...dig up the roots...crush and boil them and they produce a reasonable black dye for a woollen skirt or a pair of thick stockings...
The banks of Primroses in spring would make a light white wine...the Sweet Violets a nosegay or dipped in egg white and sugar, the finishing touch on a sponge cake. The ever so humble Dandelion makes a decent enough wine and will help to dispel bladder stones while the juice from the earlier Celandine will rid you of warts and freckles...
But perhaps the herbal most sought after would have been the Coltsfoot flower...growing on stony ground, the blooms were essential to make a soothing cough syrup...
We have wild roses growing in abundance along our street...they produce the hip used in syrups for colds and coughs...rich in Vitamin C we know now, but when our ancestors gathered them and mixed the crushed berries with honey, they were maybe going by an instinct or a collective memory rather than the results from a group of scientists in a lab.
There are big clumps of Comfrey...also known as knit-bone...used since Roman times and maybe before, as a reliable means of ensuring that broken limbs set fast...Roman soldiers also used the leaves to stop their feet from aching on long marches...a couple of the broad leaves in the bottom of their sandals.
I wonder who was the Hedge Witch here in our street...or did she come from a nearby village perhaps...gathering the herbals to make her syrups and pills and ointments...would she have had a little pony and a cart or did she walk barefoot along the laneways...perhaps she had a cottage down the end of a boreen and a cat who sat beside the fire. Alert for the scrabble of mice in the thatch...
We were kindly towards our so called Witches here in Ireland... they weren't hauled before a court and had their Witches marks exposed...we didn't build pyres of wood to burn them to death...didn't presume an old woman with a pet cat had evil intent.
We welcomed the knowledge they had of herbals and midwifery...the rituals involved in the laying out of the dead were left to them...the sweet ointments to anoint the corpse came from their little cabins deep in the woods...
Samhain...the closest we get to the otherworld is now...the month of October when the veils between the living and the dead are lifted...a time for quiet reflection...a time when we can take the opportunity to look back and to look forward...
Oh Vashti, you tell such a wonderful tale, the pictures your words evoke are truly amazing. I almost feel like I am there, with the Autumn mists enveloping the land, and the beautiful, coppery colours of the trees burnishing the sky line.
Much thanks for your ongoing, imaginative writing.
Vashti, Oh that I would like the Hedge Witch to pass by and sell me her potions and pills, especially when I ask the doctor about vitamins and she replies that there is no conclusive evidence about those. I wonder what she would think of the hedge witch, the bonesetters and other alchemists.
By the way, teh council here doesn't think much of tehm or of hedges. The other day a huge tractor with a huge cutter came to cut a strip of bushes tht had "annoyed" the neighbours. The only intersted person in bushes is the bird watcher dressed in camouflage, carrying a long telescope. Mic
One of our neighbours has solved the problem of the council hedge cutting...slashing more like...he trims the verges and the hedges himself...neatly but not too neat...tidy enough but leaves the wild flowers growing...
I'd ignore the Consultant and take vitamins anyway...lol
I like this taking over from the "Nanny State". Of course, one is free to take any legal substances in this country! Cheers, for these positive comments,
This brought a lump to my throat Vashti, but in a good way. I always think that this time of the year is a time of reflection anyway.
Somehow your words brought to mind the Flower Fairies books that I loved as a child. I seem to remember that the Blackberry Fairy was one of my favourites.
This time of year when we look inwards to ourselves...it's true of course...never much cared for the Flower Fairies (sorry!) too twee for my liking...I love the Faeire with their flash of scarlet petticoat and those strange men with silver swords and hound-dogs at their heels...
Such evocative writing - so good to be reminded of how wonderful nature is - we're often so busy coping with "life", we often forget that nature never stops. Thank you Vashti. Jan xx
Just wonderful Vashti. It makes me laugh when some dismiss these old remedies as hokus pokus ...where do they suppose all our modern medicines developed from in the first place?..XX
I have a tray full of "Natural Remedies" albeit bought from a firm in Guernsey - I shun prescription meds until I need the abs and steroids, glad enough of progress then!!
It's strange how, once we got a "free" NHS, people and doctors discovered conditions
that were unheard of in my childhood - maybe it's a kind of medical Parkinsoon's law "Disease expands to fill the available treatments?" Lovely piece as always Vashti.
I am so pleased to find out that "Witches" were left in peace in Ireland. Did the monasteries survive the attentions of Henry VIII. I always think the loss of them was a terrible loss to us all. So much learning and history gone forever. I wonder how much medical knowledge went with the monks and the monasteries.
No where near the amount of medical learning and understanding that was destroyed by Rome, along with technology and engineering, when they ordered the mass burning of massive libraries like Alexandria, Pergamon, etc
It was Cromwell's troops who finished off the huge scale of destruction carried out on the orders of Henry VIII... a few remain...not many though
What "veils between the living and the dead" do you mean? Robin
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In Paganism it is thought the living and the dead exist almost side by side...the veil between them is a metaphor...that is all, to describe the connection between the two worlds.
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I see what You mean, yes. I read it wrongly. For a moment I thought you were talking about these veils as part of your own beliefs! Of course there are those who do believe such things, & indeed that's up to them, though a bit weird. R
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Those beliefs are mine...no more weird than believing in a Virgin birth actually!
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I apologise vashti, I did not mean to offend you or attack your beliefs by calling them "weird". That was rude. To me, all such beliefs (including virgin births, multi-limbed gods, satan and father christmas!) are surprising but we're all different. Robin
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Oh...don't worry Robin...I once told someone I was Pagan and her reply was...'So you cast evil spells then?'
Had a mind to tell her I did, when not eating babies...!
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