Folklore in My Garden: Angelica Herb

Angelica archangelica is arguably the most incredible herb in my garden. Here in eastern CT, it grows rapidly to the majestic height of 6 to 8 feet, and, if planted in semi shade, reseeds prolifically year after year.   It never fails to bring astonished comments from visitors. Care must be taken in thinning it out, because Angelica is biennial, and you don’t want to remove all the first year growth. A member of the parsley family, it was candied and put into fruit cake.

Angelica has been used medicinally for many centuries, and information about those uses abounds on the web.  Gerard the herbalist claimed that it “cureth the bitings of mad dogs and all other venomous beasts.”  It was also put to work against “poisons, agues and all infectious maladies.”   The Chinese variety is known as Dong Quai, and today it’s used widely in alternative medicine.

How did Angelica acquire its interesting name?  There are two different legends. The first says that the angel Gabriel appeared to a monk,  telling  him that Angelica is a cure for, and protection against, the plague. Another version indicates that this plant blossoms annually on the feast day of the Archangel Michael, September 29th. Maybe that happens in Europe, but in CT, my plants have long gone to seed  on that day.  All parts of the plant were believed effective against evil spirits and witchcraft, and was often worn around the neck as an amulet.  Angelica was held in such esteem that it was called ‘The Root of the Holy Ghost.’ In America it was used by the Iroquois and other tribes as Witchcraft Medicine, an infusion of smashed roots was used as wash to remove ghosts from the house.  Angelica is a traditional birthing herb,  used to help bring on a delayed labor and to help expel the placenta. And Harry Potter and his fellow wizards use it in all manner of spells and potions. What higher endorsement can there be?!

Monday Morning Poem: A Child in the Garden

by Henry Van Dyke

When to the garden of untroubled thought
I came of late, and saw the open door,
And wished again to enter, and explore
The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom in wrought,

Young Girl at a Garden Gate, by Mildred Butler

And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught,
It seemed some purer voice must speak before
I dared to tread that garden loved of yore,
That Eden lost unknown and found unsought.

Then just within the gate I saw a child, —
A stranger-child, yet to my heart most dear;
He held his hands to me, and softly smiled
With eyes that knew no shade of sin or fear:
“Come in,” he said, “and play awhile with me;”
“I am the little child you used to be.”

Monday Morning Poem: The Rose Family

by Robert Frost

The rose is a rose,                                                      
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only know
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose–
But were always a rose.

Folklore in My Garden – Ferns

And when the sunset reddened on our woods,
I came upon a pathway fringed with ferns,
That led through brushwood to a little dell,
All dreamy with its stillness ‘mid the hills.

Lillian Gray, 1864

Ferns grow everywhere here in Coventry, CT, and to our pleasure, frequently volunteer in our more shady gardens. Long before Harry Potter, humans have wished for the quality of invisibility at will. “We have the receipt of fern-seede – we walke invisible”, wrote Shakespeare in Henry IV. There you go! Just get some seeds and carry them in your pocket next time you feel like a good lurk. But, there’s a method that must be used or the seed won’t work. On the eve of St John (June 21), bring a pewter dish into the nearest fern patch at midnight. Hold the dish under the ferns, but be sure not to touch or jar the plants, as the seed must fall spontaneously. And take care while you’re out there – the spirits have been know to intervene, and sometimes not for good. Often, no matter how much you collected, when you got home your sacks would be empty. On the other hand, occasionally a stranger might appear and hand you a purse full of gold. Speaking of money, if you place fern seed in with your cash, it is guaranteed never to diminish. How’s that for security?!

Nicholas Culpeper tells of a fern variety, moonwort, that would cause horses, if they stepped on it, to lose their shoes. This is said to have happened to 30 of the Earl of Essex’s horses in Tiverton, England. A poet (unknown) wrote of such wonders in the following little ditty:

Horses, that feeding on the grassy hills,

Tread upon the moonwort with their hollow heels,

Though lately shod at night go barefoot home,

Their master musing where their shoes be gone.

Apparently this fern has an effect on iron nails in general, as, if it is stuffed into a keyhole, the lock opens and the hinges are loosened.

Ferns tied to the ears of horses protect them from the devil. Beware of pulling ferns up by the roots, because you may cause a storm, or even worse, lose your wits. Burning ferns can also cause terrible weather; in 1636, King Charles I’s Lord Chamberlain wrote to the Sheriff of Staffordshire that this be “forborne” until His Majesty’s party “be passed the county.”

If on May Morning a dairy girl could find a lady fern frond big enough to cover the dairy’s scalding pan, it would bring good luck for the entire year.

Finally, I am particularly fond of ferns because in they are the very first plants in the early New England spring that have grown enough to use to make a dye for wool.

Paranormal Fiction: The Night Strangers, by Chris Bojalian

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Question: Throw together a traumatized pilot, a wife desperately trying to hold their family together, a creepy Victorian mansion, and a remote New Hampshire hamlet, and what have you got? Answer: A classic New England horror story. Emily Linton relocates her family to NH for some peace and quiet, following the crash of a jet her husband Chip was piloting. What Emily and Chip encounter is far worse than anything they encountered back in PA. For their Victorian mansion harbors a lot more than dusty old bric-a-brac, and their new village conceals deadly secrets below its charming facade.

Chris Bojalian, who knows well how to navigate his characters through emotional minefields, has crafted a modern day ghost story with all the psychological nuances and menacing Gothic atmosphere of “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James.

I believe that reading a good book is like watching a movie in your head, and that’s exactly the experience that The Night Strangers provides. These people become real. The emotional punch comes from the torments of Chip’s severe post traumatic stress, and from Emily’s overwhelming fears for her 10 year old twin daughters. The creepiness is provided by a garden club of sorts, a group of eccentric women who are avid herbalists and who befriend the Linton’s. The suspense is created by Bojalian’s masterful timing and prose, and his trust in the power of suggestion, oh so gradually ramping up the tension until the final, shattering, heart stopping chapters.

Not recommended for readers who fear flying, but for anyone else, lock the doors, especially to the cellar, pour a cup of tea (or glass of wine, to steady your nerves), and curl up with a story that’s impossible to put down or forget.

Monday Morning Poem: A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.

Natural Dyeing – Alternative (homemade) Mordants – Alum

Probably the chemical mordant most often used by home dyers is alum, partly because it is effective and readily available and partly because it is much less toxic than other metal mordants. Alum, as its name suggests, is an aluminum compound, packaged as a white powder. But it is possible to obtain mordanting effects from aluminum objects that are commonly found in most households.

Dye manuals will tell you to choose a neutral material such as glass or stainless steel as a dyepot. That is because containers made from other metals  will  affect the color of the dye. It is possible, however, to utilize that property, if you know in advance the sort of interaction that can be expected. Therefore, let’s say you want to dye wool yellow using goldenrod. In place of the alum recommended in most recipes, you can use an aluminum pasta kettle with no other mordant. The addition of cream of tartar to mitigate harshness in the wool, as in standard recipes, is also a good idea. Aluminum foil, drink cans, TV dinner trays, and pie plates are other possibilities. You probably will have to experiment a bit. As always, it’s best not to cook again with  pots and other utensils that have been used for dyeing.

Folklore in My Garden: Ivy

Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Charles Dickens

My favorite houseplant is ivy. I love its slim, graceful tendrils in a window, or wound about a fanciful topiary form. It adds a delicate touch to flower and plant arrangements, cascading over the edge. Ivy has a lengthy folklore history. In antiquity, it was sacred to the gods of wine, Dionysus and Bacchus (I love wine, too!), and for that reason it was grown along the facades of inns and pubs. A trail of ivy leaves placed in the path of a drunkard was supposed to sober him up.

Ivy also is said to bring good fortune to women of the household, and if grown on the walls of the house it would ward off witchcraft and the evil eye. A girl could place some leaves in her pocket and go for a walk. The first young man to cross her path would be her future husband. But picking even one leaf from ivy growing on a church brought illness. Ivy leaf vinegar, however, was used to protect oneself from Plague, and if applied to the toes, could cure corns. Children with whooping cough would improve if provided with an ivy wood bowl to eat and drink from. Men, if you’re suffering with hair loss, wearing an ivy wreath may put an end to your woes.

As ancient carols tell us, ivy is strongly associated with Christmas. It was not supposed to be brought into the house before the holidays, and if it touched the mantlepiece or came in attached to fire wood, bad luck would follow. In holly and ivy rituals, the holly is the masculine aspect and the ivy feminine. In some areas, the last wheat sheaf harvested would be bound with ivy, dressed in finery, and paraded home as the Ivy Girl to bring another year of prosperity. Sometimes she was given to the farmer who was last to finish his harvest. If a leaf is placed in water on New Year’s Eve and left until Twelfth Night, its condition would foretell the coming year’s fortune. If green, it predicted happiness; if withered, illness and bad fortune. If rotten, it warned of impending death .

Monday Morning Poem: Pine Trees and the Sky: Evening

by Rupert Brooke

Planet Earth Daily Photo

I’d watched the sorrow of the evening sky,
And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,
And heard the waves, and the seagull’s mocking cry.

And in them all was only the old cry,
That song they always sing — “The best is over!
You may remember now, and think, and sigh,
O silly lover!”
And I was tired and sick that all was over,
And because I,
For all my thinking, never could recover
One moment of the good hours that were over.
And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.

Then from the sad west turning wearily,
I saw the pines against the white north sky,
Very beautiful, and still, and bending over
Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.
And there was peace in them; and I
Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,
And laughed, and did no longer wish to die;
Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky!

Folklore in My Garden: The Language of Flowers

Besides chocolates, the iconic Valentine’s Day gift is flowers. Roses have been a modern tradition, but what could be more romantic than composing a bouquet that describes, in “secret”  language, how you truly feel about your Valentine. Here is a list of common flowers and fillers and their historic meanings.

Angelica – Inspiration

Bachelor’s Button – Single blessedness (?)

Basil – Best wishes, love

Bay – Glory

Brown eyed Susan – Justice

Carnation – Alas for my poor heart

Chamomile – Patience

Chives – Usefulness

Clover – Think of me

Fennel – Flattery

Fern – Sincerity

Geranium – True friendship

Goldenrod – Encouragement

Heliotrope – Eternal love

Holly – Hope

Honeysuckle – Bonds of love

Ivy – Friendship, continuity

Lady’s Mantle –  Comforting

Lavender – Devotion

Lemon Balm – Sympathy   

Mint – Eternal refreshment

Nasturtium – Patriotism

Pansy – Thinking of you

Parsley –  Festivity

Poppy – Consolation

Rose – Love

Rosemary – Remembrance

Rue – Grace, Clear vision

Sage – Immortality

Salvia (blue) – Thinking of you

Salvia (red) –  Forever mine

Sweet pea – Pleasure

Sweet woodruff – Humility

Tansy – Hostility

Tarragon – Lasting interest

Thyme – Courage, strength

Valerian – Readiness

Violet – Loyalty, devotion

Zinnia – Thoughts of absent friends