Elizabeth Andrews's Blog, page 11

Wild marjoram

I've gone back to the more traditional cure alls for this post and hopefully won't get sidetracked onto the more gruesome cures as before!
Wild Marjoram, according to Culpepper's Herbal 1653, also called Organy and Joy of the Mountain is a herbal cure-all. Made into a tea or infusion "stengthens the stomach and head much, there being scarce a better remedy growing for such as are troubled with a sour humour in the stomach, it restoreth the appetite, helps the cough and consumption of the lungs, helps the biting of venomous beasts and such as have poisoned themselves by eating hemlock, henbane or opium. It provokes urine and the terms of women, helps the dropsy, the scurvy, scabs, itch and yellow jaundice."
I like this recipe tho!
Sir William Paston's recipe for a 'pleasant mead' 1669
To a gallon of water, put a quart of honey, about ten sprigs of sweet majoram, half so many tops of bay. Boil these very well togethere and when it is cold bottle it up. It will be ready in ten days.
These days, essential oil from the leaves of wild marjoram is popular. It is used in massage to relax tense muscles or to support the nervous system, and is often simply used for its soothing aroma.
Other interesting facts about the plant.

Bees like it!

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the goddess of love first cultivated marjoram and that her gentle touch had given it its fragrance, so newly married couples were crowned with marjoram wreaths.The Greeks dressed their hair and eyebrows with a fragrant pomade made from marjoram.A bunch of sweet marjoram was placed beside milk containers during thundery weather as it was thought that this would prevent the milk going sour. 

Old fashioned cures versus high street chemists

Perhaps it's easier to walk into your nearest chemist but you could also try a few of the traditional remedies for what ails you.Take Herb Bennet for example, above, now it is seeding it is a good time to use to cure spots.Place the root into wine then use to 'scoureth out foul spots if the face be washed daily.It also refresheth the heart and maketh it merry.'
This is one that I would not recommend.To cure the thrush, take  a living frog place it in a cloth  so that it does not go down the child's throat and place the head of the frog into the child's mouth until it is dead. Then take another frog and do the same again.




Found this article in the Telegraph about Frog snot!



The mucus of a rare frog that lurks in the south Indian jungle could provide the basis of a powerful new class of drugs to combat influenza.It is found to " host defence peptides" that proved able to destroy numerous strains of human flu, whilst protecting normal cells.Don't get too excited tho as people  are advised to treat this with caution as three out of the four of the peptides found in the mucus were found to be toxic to humans. 
Some flu cure!

In Peru they use frogs along with white bean broth, honey, raw aloe vera, maca; a quick whizz in the blender and there you have an aphrodisiac called The Peruvian Viagra! 



Or another use for a frog!To cure the Black death, place a live frog on the plague sore. The frog will swell up and burst. Keep doing this with further frogs until they stop bursting. Apparently some people say that a dried toad will work better.

Sorry, I started writing this in the intention of illustrating a few 'nice' floral and herbal remedies but I seemed to have gone off in a different direction!Perhaps tomorrow!

To protect your home against faeries

And evil spirits around  midsummer which can be the most dangerous of the year, gather:St John's Wort, Mugwort, Plantain, Corn Marigold, Dwarf Elder, Yarrow, Ivy, Vervain and Orphins. These must be picked at dawn with the dew still on them. Fashion them into garlands and hang them over over the threshold to your home or alternatively burn them on the fire to drive off the spirits of the air.

Midsummer is the time to keep your house clean...

As nothing annoys the faeries more than a dirty home!So sweep your hearth and set upon it a dish which holds a mess of milk and bread. This will please the fae and if you leave your shoes by the fire they will sometimes leave a coin in one of them. But do not speak of it or they will leave, never to return.
"Farewell, Rewards and Faeries,Good housewives now may say,For now foul sluts in Dairies,Do fare as well as they,And though they sweep their hearths no less,Than maids are wont to do,Yet who of late for cleanliness,Finds six pence in her shoe?"
The Faeryes Farewell. Richard Corbet c. 1625

Faeries are active at this time of year...

So this period around midsummer is the best time to bind them to your service. One way to get a faerie:First obtain a broad crystal of approx 3" length and breadthand lay it in the blood of a white hen for three Wednesdays.Then remove and wash it with Holy Water and fumigate it.Take three young hazel rods, peel them and write the faerie's name, calling out the name three times as you write, bury the rods under a faerie hill. Call the faerie on the following Wednesday in the light of the moon. Keep your face turned to the East and when she answers your summons bind her in the crystal.

Swifts

We have been delighted every night this week by the aerial acrobatics of a pair of swifts. In the cool of the evening we have sat on our decking and have marveled at the way these birds swoop and glide so close to the buildings that they have made us duck on several occasions.





Historically these birds have been known as the devils birds or devils bitches because they are so mysterious , disappearing every winter only to reappear when the summer arrives. Now we know they migrate to Africa.
But what amazing birds!
They can fly up to around 10,000 feet and do everything on the wing, feed, drink, preen their feathers and even mate.





They also sleep on the wing and apparently shut down half their brain, while still correcting their flight so that they wake up in the same place where they fell asleep. Amazing!

In Moray the swift was believed to bring bad luck to river fishermen, while historically farmers in southern counties were encouraged to shoot at them as they 
were believed to be ‘regular limbs of Satan’. However one farmer in Hampshire shot seventeen of the birds out of bravado and subsequently had seventeen of his finest cows die!
Serves him right!

Since writing the above we now have two pairs entertaining us every night!

Is May an unlucky month?

According to folklore the month of May seems to be incredibly unlucky, for example Kittens born at this time grow into unlucky melancholy cats!
And to marry in May is notoriously unlucky, and to do it dressed in green is sheer madness!
"Married in May and kirked in greenBoth bride and bridegroom won't long be seen.O' marriages in MayBairns die in decay"

And the May weather is considered to unreliable for shorn sheep, which may take cold and die.
"Shear your sheep in MayYou'll shear them all away"
Thunder during this month presages a poor summer and a bad harvest."Thunder in MayFrightens the summer away"
According to a Devon legend the sharp frosts that occur at this time of year are the revenge of a beer brewer called Frankin who was put out of business by the rising popularity for drinking cider.He pledged his soul to the Devil in return for frosts on each of the 'Frankin's days' around the May 21st hoping that these would kill the apple blossom and ultimately ruining the cider crop.

Changelings and May

The month of May is supposed to be the ideal time for substituting mortal babies with changelings; why this month I wonder?

Faeries will not hesitate to steal un-baptized children, 
especially popular are fair haired babies, replacing them with changelings.
These may be either an old wrinkled elf who wants an easy life  or a replica made of wood which under a Faerie spell will appear to be alive.
The  replica will sometimes appear to sicken and die,it would then be buried.
It may continue to live, but it will not grow however much it eats,and changelings do have an inexhaustible appetite, it will also have a wizened deformed appearance.

In earlier years many babies that were born ugly or 
malformed were believed to be these changelings, as this was an easier explanation for parents of a socially unacceptable child; life would have been hard for these children.
Placing the changeling on a red hot poker or putting it on the fire, or whipping it was believed to make it reveal its true nature. It would then fly cackling up the chimney and disappear, the real baby would be found at the door having just been returned by the Faeries (see page 12).

Offerings of milk were left at the Well of the Spotted Rock, Inverness, by Mothers who believed that their child had been taken by the Faeries and replaced by a changeling. The changeling would then be left overnight near the well and when the Mother returned in the morning, she hoped the real child would be there, having been returned by the Faeries.

Men and Women were also taken to be husbands and wives of Faeries in the otherworld.
In 1894 in Clanmel, County Tipperary, Bridget Cleary fell under suspicion of being a changeling by her husband Michael.
She apparently appeared more refined than usual and had grown an extra two inches.
Although she protested her innocence he tortured and burned her to death  “to make the witch confess“. Michael Cleary buried the remains of his wife but they were later discovered and he was charged with manslaughter.

He was sentenced to 20 years hard labour.

Faerie births are becoming
rarer and the Faerie 
children are not as healthy as they once were.
So mortal babies are taken
to replenish their stock


The stealing of children has
a more sinister motive in
the Lowlands of Scotland.
Mortal babies are used by
the Faeries to pay the
Devil’s Tithe which is due
every seven years.



To protect a baby from
 being taken by the Faeries hang an open pair of 
scissors over the cot or stick an iron pin into the baby’s clothes.

Lay the Father’s trousers across the cot.

Draw a circle of fire around the cot.

Make the sign of the cross above the baby and 

sprinkle it and the cot with Holy Water.


Excerpt from Faeries and Folklore of the British Isles

May Day, Beltane.

I know, I can hear you all shouting you're late but I was busy!
1st May is the Celtic festival of Beltane, the beginning of summer.


May Day which harks back to pagan festivals was celebrated as the beginning of summer and on May Day Eve communities would go out and bring in the ‘May.’ Spending the night outdoors they would greet the first light with drums and blasts on cow horns to welcome  in the summer and then return home laden with branches of May blossom (Hawthorn) to decorate their homes.
And we were up as soon as any day OAnd to fetch the summer home,The summer and the May OFor the summer is a come OAnd the winter is a go O



We all know the tradition of the Maypole which once upon a time would have been practised in every community but in pagan times it would have been a living tree that our ancestors would have danced around, clapping their hands on the bark to wake the spirit within.Overseeing the celebrations would be the May Queen, decked in hedgerow flowers, and keeping her company would be the King (the Green Man) also decked in Oak and Hawthorn leaves. Children would fashion wild flowers and blossom into garlands and carry them around the village calling at every house, receiving a May Day cake from the householder as a reward.
‘Good Morning, missus and masterI wish you a happy dayPlease to smell my garlandBecause it’s the first of May’


To leave a branch of hawthorn at a friends door is a luck bringing compliment, but gifts from another kind of tree could be insulting.
Nut for a slut; plum for the glum,Bramble if she ramble; gorse for the whores.

A fair maid who the first of May,Goes to the field at then break of the dayAnd washes in dew from the hawthorn treewill ever be after handsome be


It was believed that on May Eve witches were at their most powerful and that the month would be ‘witch ridden’ so crosses were fashioned from Hazel and Rowan to hang over doorways and fireplace to prevent witches from entering. Even flowers from the children’s posies were a witch deterrent such as the Primrose, bunches were hung over doorways to the house and cowshed as it was considered to be very magical. Striking a rock with Primroses will open the way to faerieland but on a more practical note the leaves were used as a remedy for arthritis, rheumatism, gout, paralysis and a salve could be made for soothing wounds, burns.

Beware May Eve

According to The Discovery of Witchcraft of 1584, May Eve ( Walpurgis Night) is the time you must guard your children against witches.



 " The Devil teacheth witches to make ointments of the bowels and members of children, whereby they ride in the air and accomplish all their desires. So if there be any children unbaptized or not guarded with the sign of the cross or orisons (prayer) then the witches may and do catch them from their mother's side at night, or out of their cradles...and after burial steal them out of graves and seethe them in a cauldron until their flesh be made potable."



To ensure this doesn't happen  place a crust of salted bread under the baby's pillow, also hang garlic and rowan around the cradle.