Home and Living
Through the Bottleneck
In general, I prefer not to directly address issues but I feel so strongly about this recent panic caused by a shortage of baby formula that I feel that I must do so. It's unthinkable to me that one company's failure should cause so much distress. How did we allow ourselves to become so dependent on a fragile supply chain ...
From Top To Bottom
You can find the radish in a lot more places than just the salad bowl. Pliny tells us that there was at least one offering of a golden radish to the god, Apollo. Every year in Oaxaca, Mexico, they celebrate The Night of the Radish – an entire festival centered on the carving of large radishes. There are tantalizing references ...
A Comfort For The Trip
Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to make myself a garment of plant fiber that I grew, processed, spun, and wove myself. Comes from reading fairy-tales from a young age, I guess. Which is why it's always been nettles that I wanted to make it of. A robe of nettles would give me an unbroken connection to ...
Love, the Truth, and a Good Defense
Since ancient times, the Linden has been known as a tree of truth and peace. Herodotus tells us that "The Scythian diviners take also the leaf of the lime-tree (linden), which, dividing into three parts, they twine round their fingers; they then unbind it and exercise the art to which they pretend.” The Germanic peoples associated the tree with the ...
A Safety Net and A Song
In his book, Trees, A Woodland Notebook, the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell points out that many places in Great Britain are named after the elder. This suggests that elder was both common and noticed. Elder has always been considered to be female and, like many other female spirits and deities, has been believed to have two sides to her ...
Pinks Social
Aelfrida would have been unfamiliar with the plant that I so enjoy, as this cultivated variety didn't appear until the 1450's. Here is a nice article on the search for the original medieval pink. In Shakespeare's time, the gillyflower was a symbol of promiscuity because of how easily it hybridized. Today, the carnation has come to be a symbol of ...
A Softer Shade of Purple
In his book Flower Lore, Rev. Hilderic Friend tells us that “The Whortlebury, emblem of Treason, growing in wastes, affords a juice which was often used in more dangerous times to stain and disfigure the face.” I'm not sure why “the emblem of treason” but the use of blueberries as a dye was apparently fairly common throughout history. Here is ...
Willows in the World
In his book, TREES:A WOODLAND NOTEBOOK, the Right Honorable Sir Herbert Maxwell says: The name "willow" speaks to us of a time when our Anglo-Saxon forbears dwelt in wattled houses. They spoke of the tree aswelig and also as widig (whence our "withy"), the root-meaning being pliancy. Another old English name for the tree was "sallow," which in the north has ...
A Pot To Cook In
It is believed that the start of fired pottery began when someone who needed to boil water covered their willow basket with clay and put it over the fire. The fire got hot enough to burn away the willow and fire the clay. This site has a good description of the progression of the early art of pottery, as does ...
A Hopping Good Time.
It doesn't matter whether it's medieval society or modern, is there anything that symbolizes “social” more than beer? People have been brewing beer since 7000 BCE in the East and 3500 BCE in the West. Hops have been being added to beer since at least the 9th century. The practice began in Germany and spread west from there. If you'd ...
A Bed to Plant In
The medieval rectangular bed layout is attractive and easy to design. It's fairly flexible and can be adapted to many growing situations. Medieval gardens were generally surrounded by a fence and the beds inside were made square or rectangular with wide paths between them. The beds themselves were fenced to protect the plants inside from animals and unobservant passersby who ...
The Art of Dowsing
One of the things that kept coming up during my research this week was the (apparently) erroneous belief that everyone in the Middle Ages drank beer and never touched water as the water supply was contaminated. It made me start thinking about the demand for water in Medieval days. How did they get it? What did they use it for? ...