The Old English Herbals Part 3

"Hear, I beseech thee, and be favourable to my prayer.

Whatsoever herb thy power dost produce, give, I pray, with goodwill to all nations to save them and grant me this my medicine. Come to me with thy powers, and howsoever I may use them may they have good success and to whomsoever I may give them. Whatever thou dost grant it may prosper. To thee all things return. Those who rightly receive these herbs from me, do thou make them whole. G.o.ddess, I beseech thee; I pray thee as a suppliant that by thy majesty thou grant this to me.

"Now I make intercession to you all ye powers and herbs and to your majesty, ye whom Earth parent of all hath produced and given as a medicine of health to all nations and hath put majesty upon you, be, I pray you, the greatest help to the human race. This I pray and beseech from you, and be present here with your virtues, for she who created you hath herself promised that I may gather you into the goodwill of him on whom the art of medicine was bestowed, and grant for health's sake good medicine by grace of your powers. I pray grant me through your virtues that whatsoe'er is wrought by me through you may in all its powers have a good and speedy effect and good success and that I may always be permitted with the favour of your majesty to gather you into my hands and to glean your fruits. So shall I give thanks to you in the name of that majesty which ordained your birth."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM A SAXON HERBAL (Harl. 1585, folio 19_a_)]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Nec non et si quos saecularis scientiae libros n.o.bis ignotos adepturi sitis, ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen segmenta ultra marina quae in eis scripta comperimus, ignota n.o.bis sunt et difficilia ad adipiscendum.--Bonifac., _Epistolae_, p. 102.

[3] A catalogue of the books of that foundation cited by Wanley (Hickes, _Thesaur._ Vol. II. Praef. ad Catalogum) contains the entry "Medicinale Anglic.u.m," and the MS. described above has on a fly-leaf the now almost illegible inscription "Medicinale Anglic.u.m." There is unfortunately no record as to the books which, on the dissolution of the monasteries, may possibly have found their way from Glas...o...b..ry to the royal library.

[4] This chapter consists of prescriptions containing drugs such as a resident in Syria would recommend. It is interesting to find this ill.u.s.tration of a.s.ser's statement, that he had seen and read the letters which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent with presents to the king. From a.s.ser also we learn that King Alfred kept a book in which he himself entered "little flowers culled on every side from all sorts of masters." "Flosculos undecunque collectos a quibus libet magistris et in corpore unius libelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc suppetebat redigere."--a.s.sER, p. 57.

[5] The stories of miraculous cures by famous Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots are for the most part too well known to be worth quoting, but the unfair treatment of the leech is perhaps nowhere more clearly shown than in Bede's tale of St. John of Beverley curing a boy with a diseased head. Although the leech effected the cure, the success was attributed to the bishop's benediction, and the story ends, "the youth became of a clear countenance, ready in speech and with hair beautifully wavy."

[6] A small but striking instance of Saxon knowledge, or rather close observation, of plants is to be found in the following description of wolf's teazle in the _Herbarium of Apuleius_:--"This wort hath leaves reversed and th.o.r.n.y and it hath in its midst a round and th.o.r.n.y k.n.o.b, and that is brown-headed in the blossoms and hath white seed and a white and very fragrant root." The word "reversed" is not in the original and was therefore added by the Saxon translator, who had observed the fact that all the thistle tribe protect their leaves by thorns pointing backwards as well as forwards.

[7] It is interesting to remember that even as late as the sixteenth century plantain was called "waybroad." See _Turner's Herbal_.

[8] There are numerous Latin MSS. of this book, chiefly in Italian libraries, several being in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The book was first printed at Rome, probably soon after 1480, by Joh.

Philippus de Lignamine, who was also the editor. De Lignamine, who was physician to Pope Sixtus IV., says that he found this MS. in the library of the monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino. In the first impression the book is dedicated to Cardinal de Gonzaga; in the second impression to Cardinal de Ruvere. (The copy in the British Museum is of the second impression.) In this small quarto volume the ill.u.s.trations are rough cuts. It is interesting to remember that these are the earliest known printed figures of plants. The printed text contains a large number of Greek and Latin synonyms which do not appear in the Saxon translation.

Subsequent editions were printed in 1528 (Paris) and in the Aldine Collection of Latin medical writers, 1547 (Venice).

[9] Cratevas is said to have lived in the first century B.C. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all quote him.

[10] Erlanger, _Beitrage zur englischen Philologie_, No. XII. (pe??

d?da????), eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache.

[11] Printed by De Renzi in _Collectio Salernitana_, Vol. IV. (Naples, 1856).

[12] _English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times._

[13] On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting--

"This boucke with letters is wr [remainder of word illegible]

Of it you cane no languige make.

Ba C.

A happie end if thou dehre [dare] to make Remember still thyn owne esstate, If thou desire in Christ to die Thenn well to lead thy lif applie barbara crokker."

It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon ma.n.u.scripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from "barbara crokker." Her nave avowal of her inability to read the MS.

suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley's reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an a.s.sistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of 12 a year could buy Saxon ma.n.u.scripts!

[14] _Herb. Ap._, I.

[15] For "elf-shot" herbal remedies see also _Leech Book_, III. 1, 61, 64.

[16] "The visitation raises again questions which were so anxiously propounded three years ago. In what manner does an epidemic of this kind arise? How is it propagated? We are still to a great extent in the dark in regard to both these points. Indeed, it has recently been suggested that we do not 'catch' influenza at all, but that certain climatic or other conditions favour the multiplication on an important scale of micro-organisms normally present in the human air pa.s.sages.

It would be foolish to pretend to any opinion on a subject which is at present almost entirely speculative: yet the theory we have quoted may serve to show how complicated and difficult are the issues involved."--_The Times_, January 13, 1922.

[17] Translation from Dr. Charles Singer's _Early English Magic and Medicine_. Proceedings of the British Academy.

[18] _Leech Book of Bald_, Book II. 64.

[19] _Id._ Book I. 72. For other references to flying venom see _Leech Book of Bald_, I. 113; II. 65.

[20] _Lacnunga_, 6.

[21] _Cuneiform Texts_, Part XVII. pl. 50.

[22] The directions for the vapour bath are given in such a brief and yet forceful way that I cannot imagine anyone reading it without feeling at the end as though he had run breathlessly to collect the herbs, and then prepared the bath and finally made the ley of alder ashes to wash the unfortunate patient's head. Like all these cheerful Saxon prescriptions, this one ends with the comforting a.s.surance "it will soon be well with him," and one wonders whether in this, as in many other cases, the patient got well in order to avoid his friends'

ministrations. The prescription for a vapour bath made with herbs runs thus:--

"Take bramble rind and elm rind, ash rind, sloethorn, rind of apple tree and ivy, all these from the nether part of the trees, and cuc.u.mber, smear wort, everfern, helenium, enchanters nightshade, betony, marrubium, radish, agrimony. Sc.r.a.pe the worts into a kettle and boil strongly. When it hath strongly boiled remove it off the fire and seat the man over it and wrap the man up that the vapour may get up nowhere, except only that the man may breathe; beathe him with these fomentations as long as he can bear it. Then have another bath ready for him, take an emmet bed all at once, a bed of those male emmets which at whiles fly, they are red ones, boil them in water, beathe him with it immoderately hot. Then make him a salve. Take worts of each kind of those above mentioned, boil them in b.u.t.ter, smear the sore limbs, they will soon quicken. Make him a ley of alder ashes, wash his head with this cold, it will soon be well with him, and let the man get bled every month when the moon is five and fifteen and twenty nights old."

[23] _Leech Book_, I. 60.

[24] _Lacnunga_, 48.

[25] In an incantation against fever we find the instruction:--

"The sick man ... thou shalt place ... thou shalt cover his face Burn cypress and herbs ...

That the great G.o.ds may remove the evil That the evil spirit may stand aside . . . . . . .

May a kindly spirit a kindly genius be present."

R. Campbell Thompson, _Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, p. 29.

See also p. 43. Cf. also Tobit vi. 7.

[26] _A Pomeranian Rite._--An attempt was made a few days ago to cast a devil out of a woman living in a village of the Lauenberg district of Pomerania, on the Polish frontier. She appears to have been of a sour and somewhat hysterical temperament, and three of the village gossips came to the conclusion that she was a victim of diabolical possession and resolved to effect a cure by means of enchantment. They first of all gathered the herbs needed for the purpose in the forest at the proper conjunction of the stars. Then a tripod was formed of three chairs, and to these the patient was bound. Beneath her was fixed a pail of red-hot coal on which the herbs were scattered. As the fumes of the burning weeds veiled the victim the three neighbours crooned the prescribed exorcism. The louder the woman shrieked the louder they sang, and after the process had been continued long enough to prove effective, in their opinion, they ran away, believing that the devil would run out of the woman after them. She, however, continued to shriek. Her cries were heard by a man, who released her.--_The Times_, December 5, 1921.

[27] It is interesting to find the same beliefs amongst the ancient Babylonians.

"Fleabane on the lintel of the door I have hung S. John's wort, caper and wheatears With a halter as a roving a.s.s Thy body I restrain.

O evil spirit get thee hence Depart O evil Demon.

In the precincts of the house stand not nor circle round 'In the house will I stand,' say thou not, 'In the neighbourhood will I stand,' say thou not.

O evil spirit get thee forth to distant places O evil Demon hie thee unto the ruins Where thou standest is forbidden ground A ruined desolate house is thy home Be thou removed from before me, By Heaven be thou exorcised By Earth be thou exorcised."

Trans. of Utukke Limnute Tablet "B." R. C. Thompson, _Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_.

[28] Sonny (_Arch. f. Rel._, 1906, p. 525), in his article "Rote Farbe im Totenkulte," considers the use of red to be in imitation of blood.

The instruction to bind on with red is found even in the _Grete Herball_ of 1526. "Apium is good for lunatyke Folke yf it be bounde to the pacyentes heed with a lynen clothe dyed reed," etc.

[29] See W. G. Black, _Folk Medicine_.

[30] Even modern science has not yet succeeded in solving some of the mysteries connected with this remarkable plant. For instance, although the apple and the pear are closely related, mistletoe very rarely grows on the pear tree, and there is no case on record of mistletoe planted on a pear tree by human hands surviving the stage of germination. There are, it is true, two famous mistletoe pears in this country--one in the garden of Belvoir Castle and the other in the garden of Fern Lodge, Malvern, but in both cases the seed was sown naturally. It grows very rarely on the oak, and this possibly accounts for the special reverence accorded by the Druids to the mistletoe oak.

[31] _Leech Book_, I. 81.