SAFFRON: ITS HISTORY, CULTIVATION AND USES. 69 



without Saffron we cannot have well cooked peas." Apologie pour Herodote, par 

 H. Estiene, 1735. 



Probably, however, it is as a dye that Saffron during its long use has mostly 

 commended itself for cultivation, both in ancient and modern times. In early 

 Greek times Saffron dye was a Royal and almost sacred colour, though the Saffron 

 robe at one time in Athens, was used with a less decorous significance (See Becker's 

 Gallus, Becker's Charicles. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, and Hehns Kultur- 

 pflanzcn 1st. Edition of 1870). 



Saffron was used as a royal dye in old Irish days and in the Hebrides at a 

 much later period. The Lein-croich or Saffron dyed shirt or mantle was worn by 

 persons of rank in the Western Isles down to the seventeenth century (M. Martin, 

 A description of the Western Islands of Scotland, 2nd. Edition, 17 16). 



Its use in medicine is now almost limited to its employment as a colouring 

 agent. In China it is said to be much used for dyeing yellow; and at the time 

 of the Mogul Dynasty (A.D. 1 250-1368) the Chinese began to mix it with their 

 food. It is largely used in the present day in India, and to a less extent in Italy 

 and Spain. In Persia, too, up to the present time a similar use is made of it. 

 Its penetrating powers as a dye and even as an odour were proverbial. Luther's 

 Fourth Sermon (1548) will supply an instance: — 



"As the Saffron bag that hath bene ful of Saffron, or hath had Saffron in it, 

 doth ever after savour and smel of the swete Saffron that it contayneth; so our 

 blessed Ladye conceived and bare Christe in her wombe, dyd ever after resemble 

 the manners and virtues of that precious babe which she bare." 



In ancient times Saffron seems to have stood in high repute as a perfume; it 

 is probable that the passage in the Canticles IV. 14, refers to it as such; and 

 Newton, at p. 193 of his Herhall to the Bible (1587), says, "Saffron is mentioned 

 among other odiferous and sweete herbs in the Garden and Orchards of the Spouse, 

 in the Canticles; so that for the greater fragrance they bound up together (as it 

 were into one nosegay) Camphire, Spikenard, Saffron, Calamus, Cynamon, with 

 al the soote trees and herbs in Lebanon of Incense, Myrrhe, Aloes, and sweete 

 spices." 



I condense the following from Beckmann's History of Inventions (Vol. I. p. 

 176). Not only were halls, theatres, and courts strewn with the plant to give an 

 agreeable smell, but it entered into the composition of many spirituous extracts 

 which retained the same scent; and these costly smelling waters were made to 

 flow in small streams from the limbs of a statue. From Saffron, with the addition 

 of wax and other ingredients, the Greeks also prepared scented salves; of the 

 method of preparing these, mentioned by Athenseus, Cicero, and others, an account 

 is to be found in Dioscorides, Lib. 1. C. 26. 



