OF SUNDRY HERBS 113 



SAFFRON 



" Thy plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with 

 pleasant fruits ; Camphire, with Spikenard, Spikenard and 

 Saffron ; Calamus and Cinnamon, with all trees of Frankin- 

 cense ; Myrrh and Aloes, with all the chief spices." Song 

 of Solomon, IV. 13,14. 



" Pare saffron plot 

 Forget it not 

 His dwelling made trim 

 Look shortly for him 

 When harvest is gone, 

 Then saffron comes on ; 

 A little of ground 

 Brings saffron a pound." 

 Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1580. 



" For those at death's doore and almost past breathing 

 saffron bringeth breath again." John Gerard, The Herball, 

 1597- 



The saffron used in cookery for flavouring comes from the 

 crocus sativus, and from meadow saffron is obtained the 

 drug which is still much prescribed. Of the latter Turner 

 says, "It is sterke poyson and will strongell a man and 

 kill him in the space of one day ! " The saffron used in 

 cookery was formerly much more popular than it is now, 

 and presumably our ancestors liked strong flavours. Now- 

 adays it is only in Cornwall that it is used to any extent, 

 and very few people unless born and bred to it like saffron 

 cakes. Hakluyt tells us that saffron was brought to this 

 country by a pilgrim who concealed a head of it in his 

 staff, and "so he brought the root into this realm with 

 venture of his life, for if he had been taken, by the law 

 of the countrey from whence it came he had died for the 

 fact." Saffron is the only herb with a town named after 

 it Saffron Walden, in Essex, where it was grown in enormous 

 quantities for over two hundred years. Several of our 

 kings were presented with saffron in a silver bowl when they 

 visited the town. Bacon had a very high opinion of this 

 herb, and said that " what made the English people sprightly 

 was the liberal use of saffron in their broths and sweet- 

 meats." Samuel Trowell, in his New Treatise of Husbandry 

 I 



