folks gloves and ferns...

 

Sitting to greet at our front gate is the first foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, I planted here to flower.

Sometimes also called 'fox bells' from a northern European tale of a time when foxes were being hunted out. Distraught they appealed to their gods, who put these bells through the fields so they might ring and warn the foxes when hunters were abroad.

There is another explanation of the word 'foxglove' as 'folks glove' because they are worn by the little people.The Irish names for instance are lus na nban side, plant of the faery women, meirini puca, puca or faery fingers, mearacan side, faerys thimbles. Translated from the Welsh term, is goblins gloves, in Yorkshire they are called witches thimbles. In parts of Scotland they were called dead mans bells and if you heard them ring you were not long for this world.

Folks gloves leaves increase the activity of muscular tissue, especially that of the heart and arterioles, and have thus been used in treating heart failure. From her comes the manufactured cardiac drug digitalis that is cumulative in the body. She is a potent plant on many levels.

Another plant long associated for me with faery realms is fern. I had a strong urge to make a poppet with embroidery based on these some of the planets most ancient plants, also said to be a doorway into other realms. My mum recently gave me a cloth with ferns embroidered on it, and I was remembering how much i loved ferns as a kid, making gardens of moss and ferns for the fey. I stuffed her with dried rose petals that my grandmother collected and dried for her potpurri. Just a little reminder to go onto my altar of the magic of this time of year when growth is so verdant and nature spirits abound...

Resources: Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend 1972
                 Green Magic, Lesley Gordon
                

A Rudyard Kipling tale....

 

Ive just been on a trip to the bigsmoke, where i scoured op shops and second hand bookshops. I found this gem by Rudyard Kippling, which is a tale of two children, Dan and Una, who Pan / Puck gives the ability 'To see what they should see and hear what they should hear, though it should have happened three thousand year'. Translated that means Robin Goodfellow introduces them to people from the past, including herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, although the deal is that after, they will forget doing so. The tale begins with an ode to nature written thus....

 A Charm

Take of English earth as much
As either hand might rightly clutch
In the taking of it breathe    
Prayer for all who lie beneath-
Not the great nor well bespoke,
but the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation.
Lay that earth upon thy heart,
And thy sickness shall depart!

It shall sweeten and make whole
Fevered breast and festered soul;
It shall mightily restrain
Over-busy hand and brain;
It shall ease thy mortal strife
'Gainst the immortal woe of life,
Till thyself restored shall prove
By what grace the heavens do move.

Take of English flowers these-
Springs full-faced primroses,
Summers wild-hearted rose,
Autumns wall-flower of the close,
And, thy darkness to illume,
Winter's bee thronged ivy-bloom.
Seek and serve them where they bide
From Candlemas to Christmas-tide.
For these simples used aright
Shall restore a failing sight.

These shall cleanse and purify
Webbed and inward turning eye;
These shall show thee treasure hid,
thy familiar fields amid,
At thy threshhold, on thy hearth,
Or about the daily path;
And reveal (which is thy need)
Every man a king indeed!

Four Thieves vinegar...

This brew has been used for centuries and is said, so the story goes, to have originated during an out break of bubonic plague in France...
Four thieves had been ransacking the homes of people who had died, or were ill with, the plague. Eventually the long arm of the law caught up with them and they were brought before judges in Marseilles, who wondered at their seeming immunity to the plague. the thieves answered that they washed and took internally this vinegar preparation....
Recipes vary but a basic one follows...

2 quarts apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lavendar
2 tablespoons rosemary
2 tablespoons sage
2 tablespoons wormwood
2 tablespoons rue
2 tablespooons mint
2 tablespoons fresh garlic cloves

Combine the dry herbs and steep in the vinegar in the sun for 2 weeks. Strain and rebottle. Add the cloves of garlic, steep for several days, strain out. Melt paraffin wax around the lid to preserve the contents, or add 4 ounces of glycerine, for preservation.

This aromatic antibacterial vinegar is an goodly wash for rooms of healing, bathrooms and kitchens. It will offset a smell of dampness, and be a helpfull floor and wall wash in overcrowded situations.

Externally, this vinegar may be used in small amouts in a bath or diluted as a body wash. Some of the herbs in this brew are too strong for the skin, so the vinegar must be diluted.

Internally, the dose is a teaspoon at a time in water- no more than 3 times in an hour ( equivalent to a tablespoon). This acts as a preventative during an epidemic.

A modern addition would be to put the brew into a spray bottle....

Some say the brew was created by apothecary Richard Forthave and its eficacy led to the four thieves story..