A HOUSEWIFE'S HERBS 



lowliest villager to search for sorrel, even though 

 it made as good a salad. "Good King Henry," 

 once the wild spinach of the English peasant, is 

 rarely heard of now though still grown under the 

 name of " marcy " (mercury) in Lincolnshire cottage 

 gardens. There is a plant not seen in all wet 

 meadows, but common enough in some, the 

 snakeweed or bistort, with rose-coloured flowers. 

 I found it by the stream, and was reminded of its 

 ancient fame. It was the "all-good" of simple 

 village folk, who boiled and ate with relish the 

 young shoots ; besides, its roots, full of starchy 

 matter, have been counted good food. Many 

 plants in old England were esteemed by the 

 housewife, though they yielded neither food nor 

 medicine. There was sweet gale, golden ozier, 

 which I found scenting New Forest bogs in May. 

 In the north, the peasantry made beds of the twigs 

 of sweet gale, and scented their clothes with its 

 leaves. Of the purple melic grass stems the 

 countryman would make his besoms perhaps 

 where birch trees were not plentiful. By the black 

 juice of the common horehound the gipsy once 

 darkened her skin. The cow-parsnip was food 

 for beast in some places for man even. The 

 common heath furnished thatch for the cottager's 

 roof, the dried flowers of the carline thistle (ex- 

 panding in dry, closing in wet, weather) did for 

 barometer, and so too wild oat-grass. An odder 

 use than these, pertaining more to sport than 

 domestic economy, was that of scantily equipped 



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