The Physicians of Myddfai...

I love a good herbal tale and the story of the Physicians of Myddfai, legendary Welsh healers, is a corker...

 It's said, there was a war widow and her son living by the lake Llyn-Van-Vach where there cows liked to pasture. One day the young man was astonished to see by the lapping waters seated upon a rock a beautyfull woman, beyond any he'd seen, and the maidens of Myddvai are renound for their fairness. In an attempt to connect with her, he offered some of his homebaked bread to her but she merely laughed and said "Your bread is hard baked, Tis not easy to catch me."

That night he again related the tale to his mother, who could see he was lovestruck and suggested taking unbaked bread to the maiden. The lad returned early, and keen, the next day but the woman was nowhere to be seen. There was a group of cows moving close to the waters and out of duty he went to make sure they were alright, and there she was, as beautyfull as he remembered. He offered her the unbaked bread and she replied "Your bread is unbaked" but something in her smile gave him hope as she disappeared into the lake. So he again told his tale to his mother and this time returned to the lake with gently baked bread, and there she was...

Today, he took her hand and today she agreed indeed to become his wife, but only, he would have answered yes to any conditions, only would she remain with him as long as he never raised a hand to her, thrice causeless blows and she would leave him forever. Said as she slipped from his hands into the waters and was no longer to be seen. The youth was grief struck that she had slipped through his fingers, literally and in his mist of grief decided to hurl himself into the waters where dwelt his onnly reason for living, but as he proceeded  3 figures rose from the waters. A regal man and two identical looking women, identical to his love.

The man spoke "I will grant you marriage of my daughter and as many herd animals as she can count in one breath, if, if you can choose which of these two maids is she." The lad was perplexed, truley these pair were exact in every way. In that moment when he thought all was lost, one put her foot forward a little. Now the lad had noted the finess of his beloveds ankles and the style of sandal she wore, looking from maiden to maiden he now saw they wore different sandals and was able to choose correctly and so they were married with blessings and a large number of cows, goats and sheep.

They went to live in prosperity at a farm called Esgair Llaethdy more than a mile from the village of Myddvai and had three beautyfull sons. But as the years went by there were two ocassions when the lady of the lake said a hand had been raised against her. One more and he would lose all he loved the most but amid the cleverness of his sons and the bounty of his herd the lad, now a man forgot. One day they were all in attendance of a funeral when his wife began to laugh joyously, "hush" said her husband but she continued that this was no time for tears but joy at the release from suffering, and there it was as he touched her shoulder...the third blow. His wife up and called her herd back to the waters, including a slaughtered black calf, who rose up and followed and they were gone.

What then happened to the disconsolate husband has not been recorded but the sons is another matter.
The boys wandered often near the lake hoping that their mother might appear on the earth before them once more and with time indeed she did. She appeared  to her eldest son whos name was Rhiwallon and told him his purpose in lif was to relieve humanies pain and suffering and began to tutor him in the use of herbs and the healing of all diseases.

On several ocassions she met her sons by the lake and on one accompanied them as far as a place thats still named "Pant-y-Meddygon" the dingle of the physicians, where she showed them various plants and herbs which grew there, their qualities and virtues. Soon they were unsurpassed as healers and so that what they had learned be preserved for prosperity and never be lost it is said they wrote down their learnings in the Red Book. They became healers to lords and were granted fine lands and position. So the Lady of the Lake ensured her sons futures and the Physicians of Myddvai were established, their traditions and knowledge to be carried on down the generations.

Resources: "The Physicians of Myddfai: Ancient Herbal Remedies Associated with a Legend of the Lady of            the Lake" Translated by John Pughe

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..

A woman who stands out....

Whilst today when someone says 'traditional medicine' some folks think of mainstream doctoring, infact its only in the last few centuries that prescriptions meant manufactured pharmaceuticals, surgery and  highly technological treatments rather than nature based cures. At the moment I find the process and tales of this transition fascinating, and a little scary....

 One woman who stands out from the 1100s in Germany, is Saint Hildegard of Bingen, who was a nun, and then an abbess. She is rare in that she was a woman who could combine the physical healing properties of herbs with spiritual healing of incantations yet not be burned at the stake for it, although I imagine at the time people might well have tried. In the story of early written herbals she is mostly among male company.

She was a seer of visions, a writer of music, manuscripts, and healer. She wrote two treatises on medicine and natural history, known in English as Book of Simple Medicine and Book of Composed Medicine, between 1151 and 1161. (In some manuscripts the two are combined as The Subtleties of the Diverse Natures of Created Things.) They are often referred to by their Latin titles, Physica and Causae et Curae, respectively. The number of manuscript copies of these works still in existence indicates that these works were widely read and influential.

She was part of a intergenerational monastic tradition of doctoring monks. and nuns, working for love not money. They were often well travelled and communication between areas allowed for comparisons, and exchange, of information about treatments. At its best they were not trying to increase their patient base, or turn a profit, but offered a kindly herbalism based on a practical knowledge of the plants in their gardens and surrounds, when practices such as blood letting and purging were popular.

One aspect of what I read of her work that I find interesting is her belief in a force she called 'viriditas' meaning 'greeness' or 'greening power' a kind of nature based lifeforce. Hildegard wrote that God transmits life into plants, animals, and gems. People eat plants and animals and acquire gems, thus obtaining viriditas. then thry, in turn give that essence out by virtuous acts, in a kind of passing on of life force through and with intention.

Hildegard followed on with the ancient Greek belief that the four elements comprised everything in the universe, air, water, fire and earth, and that peoples bodies reflected as a microcosm of this in posessing four  humors—choler (yellow bile), blood, phlegm, and melancholy (black bile).
Balance of the elements was seen to lead to health, imbalance to disease.

"Like billowing clouds, like the incessant babble of the brook.
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled."