Tag: herb
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Oh Rowan Tree
“The rowan tree’s graceful leaves and soft white flowers brush my arm like a whisper.” Lisa Ann Sandell, Song of the Sparrow One of the things I loved most about working in big national museums, was when people Iknew came to visit because it meant I could take them on a tour of my favourite…
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Juniper Tree: A Welcome to the Gods
“On the sideboard there always stood before breakfast a bottle of whisky, smuggled, of course, with plenty of camomile flowers, bitter orange-peel, and juniper berries in it – “bitters” we called it – and of this he (Sir Hector Mackenzie) had a wee glass always before we sat down to breakfast, as a fine stomachic.”…
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Vervain: The Druid’s Heal All
Cover art by Cecilia Brendel “An ancient Irish prescription calls for seven balls of ground ivy, vervain, eye-bright, groundsel, foxglove, bark of elder tree, and young shoots of hawthorn well mixed together. These are made into a potion with bog water and salt and boiled in a vessel with a piece of money and an…
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Mullein: The Hag’s Taper
“A decoction of the leaves with the flowers is good against the diseases of the lungs, such as coughs and spitting of blood. It is also good for colic pains. Applied externally, the leaves are useful against swellings, ulcers, inflammations of the eyes, burns and scalds… Country people say that carrying it about one preserves…
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Ivy: Protector and Peaceful Binder of Energies
“Ivy… It is used as a protective for milk, milk products, flocks, and by lovers as an emblem of fidelity. An old man in Uist said that he used to swim to an islet in a lake in his neighbour- hood for ivy, woodbine, and mountain ash. These, sometimes separately and sometimes combined, he twined…