GERARD'S HERBAL 107 



other strewing herbs for to decke up houses, to strawe in chambers, 

 halls and banqueting houses in the summertime, for the smell 

 thereof makes the heart merrie and joyful and delighteth the 

 senses." 



In connection with vervain he quotes Pliny's saying that " if 

 the dining room be sprinckled with water in which the herbe hath 

 been steeped the guests will be the merrier." 



Scattered through the Herbal we find recipes for the cure of 

 many other ailments with which modern science does not 

 attempt to cope. For instance, under " peony " we read : 

 ' The black graines (that is the seed) to the number of fifteene 

 taken in wine or mead is a speciall remedie for those that are 

 troubled in the night with the disease called the Night Mare, 

 which is as though a heavy burthen were laid upon them and they 

 oppressed therewith, as if they were overcome with their enemies, 

 or overprest with some great weight or burthen, and they are 

 also good against melancholic dreames." Under Solomon's seal 

 one lights on this : " The root stamped while it is fresh and greene 

 and applied taketh away in one night or two at the most any 

 bruise, black or blew spots, gotten by falls or women's wilfulnesse 

 in stumbling upon their hasty husbands' fists or such like." Of 

 cow parsnip he tells us : " If a phrenticke or melancholicke man's 

 head bee anointed with oile wherein the leaves and roots have 

 been sodden, it helpeth him very much, and such as bee troubled 

 with the sickness called the forget full evill." Would any modern 

 have either the courage or the imagination to attempt to cure 

 " the forgetfull evill " ? In the old Saxon herbals the belief 

 in the efficacy of herbs used as amulets is a marked feature, 

 and even in Gerard's Herbal much of this old belief survives. 

 " A garland of pennyroyal," he tells us, " made and worne about 

 the head is of a great force against the swimming in the head, 

 the paines and giddiness thereof." The root of spatling poppy 

 " being pound with the leaves and flour es cureth the stinging 

 of scorpions and such like venemous beasts : insomuch that 

 whoso doth hold the same in his hand can receive no damage 



