Rosalind Northcote

Here may’st thou range the goodly, pleasant field,
And search out simples to procure thy heal,
What sundry virtues, sundry herbs do yield,
’Gainst grief which may thy sheep or thee assail.

Eclogue vii.—Drayton.

And tryed time yet taught me greater thinges;
The sodain rising of the raging seas,
The soothe of byrdes by beating of their winges,
The powre of herbes, both which can hurt and ease;
And which be wont t’enrage the restless sheepe,
And which be wont to worke eternal sleepe.

Shepheard’s Calendar.—Spenser.

And did you hear wild music blow
All down the boreen, long and low,
The tramp of ragweed horses’ feet,
And Una’s laughter wild and sweet.

The Passing of the Shee.—N. Hopper.

Herbs and animals may appear linked together in many aspects, but there are two in which I specially wish to look at them—first, glancing at the old traditions that tell of beasts and birds themselves having preferences among herbs; secondly, the human reasoning, which decreed that certain plants must benefit or affect special creatures. The glamour of magic at times hovers over both. Ragwort is St James’s Wort (the French call it JacobÉe), and St James is the patron saint of horses, therefore Ragwort is good for horses, and has even gained the name of the Staggerwort, from being often prescribed for “the staggers.” This is a good specimen of the reasoning, but there is romance about the plant which is far more attractive. Besides being good for horses, it is actually the witches’ own horse! There is a high granite rock called the Castle Peak, south of the Logan Rock in Cornwall, where, as tales run, witches were specially fond of gathering, and thither they rode on moonlight nights on a stem of Ragwort. In Ireland, it is the fairies ride it, and there it is sometimes called the Fairy’s Horse.

Reach up to the star that hangs the lowest,
Tread down the drift of the apple blow,
Ride your ragweed horse to the Isle of Wobles.

Ragwort is specially beloved by the Leprehauns, or Clauricanes, the little fairy cobblers, who are sometimes seen singing or whistling over their work on a tiny shoe. They wear “deeshy-daushy” leather aprons, and usually red nightcaps.

Do you not catch the tiny clamour,
Busy click of an elfin hammer,
Voice of the Lepracaun singing shrill,
As he merrily plies his trade.

W. B. Yeats.

There is a very nice legend of the Field of Boliauns, which turns on the belief that every Leprehaun has a hidden treasure buried under a ragwort. And if anyone can catch the little man, and not for one second take his eyes off him until the plant is reached, the Leprehaun must show him exactly where to dig for it. In the Isle of Man, they used to tell of another steed, not the fairies’ horse, but a fairy or enchanted horse, ridden by mortals. If anyone on St John’s Eve, they said, trod on a plant of St John’s Wort after sunset, the horse would spring out of the earth, and carry him about till sunrise, and there leave him wherever they chanced at that moment to be.

William Coles[102] speaks with great decision as to the various remedies which animals find for themselves. “If the Asse be oppressed with melancholy, he eats of the herbe Asplenium... so the wilde Goats being shot with Darts or Arrows, cure themselves with Dittany, which Herb hath the power to worke them out of the Body and to heale up the wound.” Gerarde adds that the “Deere in Candie” seek the same remedy, and Parkinson remarks of Hemp Agrimony, “It is sayd that hunters have observed that Deere being wounded by the eating of this herbe have been healed of their hurts.” Drayton’s Hermit refers to dictam or dittany.

And this is dictam which we prize
Shot shafts and darts expelling.

Shelley is less definite. He only laments:

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more
In which its heart cure lies.

[102] “Art of Simpling.”

Goats do not seek Sea-Holly as a remedy, but it has a startling effect upon them if, by accident, they touch it. “They report that the herb Sea-Holly (Eryngium maritimum), if one goat take it into her mouth, it causeth her first to stand still, and afterwards the whole flocke, untill such time as the Shepherd take it forth of her mouth, as Plutarch writeth.”[103] However much these wild theories may exceed facts as to animals curing themselves, they are not altogether without reason, for the instinct of beasts leading them to healing herbs has often been noticed. Evelyn says: “I have heard of one Signior Jaquinto, Physician to Queen Anne (Mother of the Blessed Martyr, Charles the First), and was so to one of the Popes. That observing the Scurvy and Dropsy to be the Epidemical and Dominent Diseases of this Nation, he went himself into the Hundreds of Essex (reputed the most unhealthy County of this Island), and us’d to follow the Sheep and Cattell on purpose to observe what Plants they chiefly fed upon; and of those Simples compos’d an excellent Electuary of extraordinary Effects against those Infirmities.

[103] Gerarde.

“Thus we are told, that the Vertue of the Cophee was discover’d by marking what the Goats so greedily brutted upon. So Æsculapius is said to have restor’d dismember’d Hippolitus by applying some simples, he observ’d a Serpent to have us’d another dead Serpent.” The last instance sounds mythical! But goats have really more than once led mankind to some useful bit of knowledge. There is a Chilian plant, Boldo, a tincture of the leaves of which are frequently administered in France for hepatic complaints, and this is the history of the discovery of its virtues. “The goats in Chili had been for many years subject to enlargement of the liver, and the owners of the flocks had begun to despair of them as a source of revenue, until it was observed that certain flocks were exempt from the complaint, whilst others in adjacent districts continued subject to it. It was ultimately discovered that the goats browsing in fields where Boldo grew were never a prey to hepatic diseases, and the herb became gradually known and used, first by South American and then by French druggists.” Boldo is little used in England.

Sheep seek Dandelions; and Miss Anne Pratt quotes an agricultural report, describing how some weakly lambs were moved into a field full of Dandelions in flower, and how rapidly the conspicuous blossoms were devoured. Finally, as the flowers grew fewer and fewer, the lambs were seen pushing one another away from the coveted plants, and in this field they speedily gained in health and strength. Valerianella Olitaria is said to be a favourite food of lambs, and so gains its name of Lambs’ Lettuce. Shepherds and flocks have always been favourite subjects for poetry, and Drayton touches them very prettily:—

Nep or Cat-mint is said to have a great attraction for cats. Of which there is this old rime:—

The weasel, with a grand knowledge of counter-poisons, “arms herself with eating of Rue,” before fighting a serpent. Folkard says that in the north of England there is a tradition that when hops were first planted there, nightingales also made their first appearance, and he adds that both have long since disappeared, north of the Humber. In other parts of England there is an idea (quite a false one) that nightingales will only sing where cowslips flourish. The cuckoo is connected with both plants and minerals. In some parts of Germany, Mr Friend writes, the call of the cuckoo is thought to reveal mines, and the cuckoo’s bread, the purple orchis, grows most abundantly where rich veins of metal lie beneath. There is a story about the plantain, a plant with a most interesting legendary history, in which the cuckoo appears. Once the Plantain or Waybread was a maiden, always watching for her absent lover, and at last she was changed into the plant that almost always grows by the road-side. And now every seventh year the plantain becomes a bird, either the Cuckoo or the Cuckoo’s servant, the Dinnick.

The Yellow Rattle is sometimes called Gowk’s Siller, and Gowk may mean either the Cuckoo or a fool, so they may quarrel for it. Johnston seems to think that the siller belongs rather to the fool, for he remarks: “the capsules rattle when in seed... being like the fool unable to conceal its wealth.” The Swallow restored sight to the eyes of her young, when any evil had befallen them, by the help of Celandine. And it was for this reason, says Gerarde, that the flower gained its name, Chelidonium, swallow-herbe, and not because it “first springeth at the coming of the swallows or dieth when they goe away.”... Celsus doth witnesse that it will restore “the sight of the eies of divers young birds... and soonest of all of the sight of the swallow.” The eagle, when he wishes his sight to be particularly keen, rubs his eyes with the wild Lettuce, and the hawk follows his example, but chooses Hawkweed with equal success. Doves and pigeons find that Vervain cures dimness of vision and goldfinches and linnets and some other birds turn to eyebright. “The purple and yellow spots which are upon the flowers of eyebright very much resemble the diseases of the eyes or bloodshot.”[105] There is a very wide belief in a magic plant called Spring-wort or Spring-wurzel of which Folkard gives an interesting description. “Pliny,” he says, “records the superstition concerning it, almost in the same form in which it is now found in Germany. If anyone touches a lock with it, the lock, however strong, must yield. In Switzerland it is carried in the right pocket to render the bearer invulnerable to dagger or bullet; and in the Hartz mountains it is said to reveal treasures. One cannot easily find it oneself, but generally the wood-pecker (according to Pliny also the raven, in Switzerland, the Hoopoe, in the Tyrol, the swallow) will bring it under the following circumstances. When the bird has temporarily left its nest this must be stopped up with wood. The bird then flies away to find the Spring-wurzel and will open the nest by touching it with the root. Meantime a fire or a red cloth must be placed near by, which will so frighten the bird that it will let the magical root fall.” Le petit Albert, to procure Spring-wort suggests tying up a magpie’s nest with new cords, but merely says that she brings une herbe to release her nestlings, without giving its name.

Several legends are attached to the Wood-pecker. Amongst others there is an idea that the root of the Peony is good for epilepsy, but should a Wood-pecker be in sight when the patient tastes it he would be forthwith struck blind! In Piedmont there is a little plant called the Herb of the Blessed Mary, which is fatal to birds, and there it is said that when young wild birds are caught and caged their parents bring them a sprig of it, that death rather than imprisonment may be their lot. De Gubernatis speaks of an oriental bird of greater resource, the Paperone, for when his little ones are imprisoned he seeks and brings a root which breaks the iron bars and releases them. Parkinson tells of an Indian herb which “cast to the birds causeth as many as take it to fall downe to the ground as being stoned for a time, but if any take it too greedily it will kill them, if they bee not helped by cold water put on their heads, but Dawes above all other birds are soonest kild thereby.” There is a suggestion of comedy in this picture of a seventeenth century herbalist in a foreign land pouring cold water on the heads of wild birds.

“The raven, when he hath killed the chameleon, and yet perceiving he is hurt and poisoned by him, flyeth for remedy to the Laurell,” which “represseth and extinguisheth the venom,” says Pliny.[106] The elephant, under the same circumstances, recovers himself by eating “wild Olive, the only remedy he hath of this poison.... The storke, feeling himself amisse, goeth to the herbe Organ for remedy,” and Parkinson quotes Antigonas as saying that ring-doves cured their wounds with the same plant. Stock-doves, jays, merles, blackbirds and ousels recover “their appetite to meate,” by eating bay leaves; and ducks, geese and other waterfowl seek endive or chicory. Of course, chickweed and goosegrass have gained their names as the result of similar observations, more modern, and possibly more accurate. Elder-berries are eaten by birds, but they are said to have serious effects on chickens.

Lizards cure themselves of the biting of serpents with calaminth, and the tortoise cautiously eats a “kind of sauorie or marjerome” before the battle. Sir Francis Bacon mentions that, “the snake loveth fennel; that the toad will be much under sage; that frogs will be in cinquefoil”; though he unromantically doubts that the virtue of these herbs is the cause of these preferences. Turner also remarks on the toad’s liking for sage, and says: “Rue is good to be planted among Sage, to prevent the poison which may be in it by toads frequenting amongst it, but Rue being amongst it they will not come near it.” A toad recovers itself by means of the plantain from the poison of the spider, and Bullein[107] tells us of the frog’s fondness for the Scabiosa, under whose leaves they will “shadow themselves from the heate of the daie, poppyng and plaiying under these leaves, which to them is a pleasant Tent or Pavillion.” The reputed venom of toads was sometimes said to be sucked from camomile, of all plants!

Pliny wrote of the serpent, that waking in the spring, she finds that during the winter her sight has become “dim and dark, so that with the herbe Fennell she comforteth and anointeth her eies,” and having cast her coat, “appeareth fresh, slick and yong again.”

If camomile furnishes venom for toads, it seems to provide nourishment for fishes. William Browne says of some nymphs:—

Isaac Walton observes that, “Parsley and Garden earth recovers and refreshes sick fish.” The Alder or Aul is indirectly connected with trout in a Herefordshire rhyme:—

Among other counsels Piscator speaks of the perch’s tastes. “And he hath been observed by some not usually to bite till the mulberry-tree buds—that is to say, till extreme frosts be past in the spring.... Some think [of grayling] that he feeds on water-thyme, and smells of it at his first taking out of the water.” A pike has a liking for lavender, and the directions for trying for this fish with a dead bait begin: “Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike [lavender], and then anoint the bait with it. Wheat boiled in milk and flavoured with Saffron is a choice bait for Roach and Grayling, and Mulberries and those Blackberries which grow upon briars, be good baits for Chubs and Carps.” Gerarde says that Balm rubbed over hives will keep the bees there, and cause others to come to them, and Parkinson thought that the “leaves or rootes of Acorus (sweet-smelling Flagge) tyed to a hive” would have the same effect.

To turn to the herbs prescribed by men for beasts, we find that Spenser alludes to two of them:—

A marginal note suggests that the latter meant the “turpentine tree.” “The tree that weepeth turpentine” is mentioned by Drayton, and we may suppose that both poets referred to the same tree, the Silver Fir (Pinus picra). Melampode was hellebore or bear’s foot, a very important plant, and it was much used in magic. A cynical French verse says:—

Once people blessed their cattle with it to keep them from evil spells, and “for this purpose it was dug up with certain attendant mystic rites: the devotees first drawing a circle round the plant with a sword, and then turning to the east and offering a prayer to Apollo and Æsculapius for leave to dig up the root.”[108] In the old French romance, Les Quatre Fils Aymon, the sorcerer, Malagis or Maugis, when he wishes to make his way, unchallenged, through the enemy’s camp, scatters powdered hellebore in the air as he goes. Both the Black and the White Hellebore, Parkinson says, are known to be very poisonous, and the white hellebore was used by hunters to poison arrows, with which they meant to kill “wolves, foxes, dogs,” etc. Black Hellebore was used to heal and not to hurt, and “a piece of the roote being drawne through a hole made in the eare of a beast troubled with cough, or having taken any poisonous thing, cureth it, if it be taken out the next day at the same houre.” This writer believes that White Hellebore would be equally efficacious in such a case, but Gerarde recommends the Black Hellebore only as being good for beasts. He says the old Farriers used to “cut a slit in the dewlap and put in a bit of Beare-foot, and leave it there for daies together.” Verbascum thapsis was called Bullock’s Lungwort, from the resemblance of its leaf to a dewlap, and on the Doctrine of Signatures was therefore given to cattle suffering from pneumonia.

Samoclas, or Marchwort, was a strange herb which used to be put in the drinking-troughs of cattle and swine to preserve their health. But to obtain this desirable result it had to be “gathered fasting, and with the left hand, without looking back, when it was being plucked.”[109] Gervase Markham mentions a curious evil among cattle. He says if a shrew-mouse run over a beast “it feebleth his hinder parts and maketh him unable to go. The cure is to draw him under, or beat him with a Bramble, which groweth at both ends in the furrowes of corne lands.” Markham was a noted authority on Husbandry and Farriery in the early part of the seventeenth century, and he gives advice for the various ills afflicting horses. For nightmare he prescribed balls composed of Aniseed, Liquorice and Garlic, and other ingredients. For toothache, Ale or Vinegar, in which Betony has been seethed; and loose teeth are to be rubbed with the leaves of Elecampane, which will “fasten” them. Stubwort (wood-sorrel), “lapped in red Dock leafe and roasted in hot cinders, will eat away the dead flesh in a sore,” and any “splint, iron, thorne or stub” may be drawn out by an application of Yarrow, Southernwood, Cummin-seed, Fenugreek and Ditany, bruised with black soap. Horse Mint, Wormwood and Dill are other herbs recommended by this author.

Gerarde says that the leaves of Arsmart (Persicaria) rubbed on the back of a tired horse, and a “good handfull or two laid under the saddle, will wonderfully refresh him;” and Le petit Albert gives a recipe for making a horse go further in one hour than another would go in eight. You must begin by mingling a handful of “Satyrion” in his oats, and anointing him with the fat of a deer; then when you are mounted and ready to start “vous lui tournerez la tÊtÉ du cotÉ de soleil levant et vous penchant sur son oreille gauche vous prononÇerez trois fois À voix basse les paroles suivantes et vous partirez aussi tÔt: Gaspar, Melchior, Merchisard. T’ajonte À cecy que si vous suspenderez au col du cheval les grosses dents d’un loup qui aura ÉtÈ tuÉ en courant, le cheval ne sera pas fatigue de sa course.” No doubt these proceedings were carried out by the traveller with an air of mystery, and must have impressed the bystanders, but one wonders what the rider thought of them after an hour’s journeying? Satyrion is a kind of orchis. There was a herb called Sferro Cavallo which was supposed to be able to break locks or draw off the shoes of the horses that passed over it. Sir Thomas Browne speaks of it in his “Popular Errors,” and laughs the idea to scorn, and “cannot but wonder at Matthiolus, who, upon a parallel in Pliny, was staggered into suspension” [of judgment]. This plant was probably the Horse-shoe Vetch, whose seed-vessels, being in the shape of horse-shoes, may have given rise to the superstition; but Grimm thought it was the Euphorbia Lathyris. The same belief is found in different countries, referred to other plants; the French thought that Rest Harrow had this marvellous property, and Culpepper tells the same tale about the Moonwort (Botrychium Lunaria), which had the country name of Unshoe-the-Horse. “Besides, I have heard commenders say that in White Down in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty horse-shoes, pulled off from the feet of the Earl of Essex’s horses, being then drawn up in a body, many of them being but newly shod, and no reason known, which caused much admiration, and the herb described usually grows upon heaths.” One would hardly have thought that “admiration” was the feeling evoked, but perhaps nobody concerned was pressed for time!

Hound’s Tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) was believed to have the remarkable property that it will “tye the tongues of Houndes, so that they shall not bark at you, if it be laid under the bottom of your feet.”

In Markham’s advice about domestic animals, he alludes to a “certaine stage of madnesse” which attacks rabbits, and says that the cure is Hare-Thistle (Sonchus oleraceus). The “Grete Herbal” called this plant the “Hare’s Palace.” “For yf the hare come under it, he is sure that no best can touche hym.”

These statements lead one to feel that once upon a time, the world was much more like the world of Richard Jefferies than it is, and that “wood magic” was nearer to our forefathers than to ourselves. Nowadays, when everything travels more quickly along the road of life, the eyes of ordinary mortals get confused with the movement and the jostling and they do not see the pretty by-play that goes on in the bushes by the way, nor peer into the depths of the woodland beyond. In this they lose a good deal, but no one can “put back the clock,” and one must feel grateful that the idylls of the forest are still being acted, and that there are still men whose vision is quick enough to catch sight of them, and whose pens have the cunning to put before others the glimpses that they themselves have caught.

A legend exists about the Cormorant, the Bat, and the Bramble—quite inconsequent, but not wholly out of place here, so it shall serve as a conclusion.

Once the Cormorant was a wool merchant and he took for partners the Bat and the Bramble. They freighted a large ship with wool, but she was wrecked and then they were bankrupt. Ever since that, the Cormorant is diving into the deep, looking for the lost ship; the Bat skulks round till midnight, so that he may not meet his creditors, and the Bramble catches hold of every passing sheep to try and make up for his loss by stealing wool. No doubt, you have often noticed their ways, but did you ever before know their reasons?