40 THE BOOK OF HERBS 



to the palate," and therefore neglects many viands 

 ■which would be of great benefit. Both savories are 

 occasionally used more or less in the way he suggests, 

 winter savory being the favourite. In Cotton's sequel 

 to the " Complete Angler," a " handful of sliced horse- 

 radish-root, with a handsome little faggot of rosemary, 

 thyme and winter savoury" is recommended in the 

 directions for " dressing a trout." One of the virtues 

 attributed to both savories by the old herbahsts is still 

 agreed to by some gardeners : " A shoot of it rubbed on 

 wasp or bee stings instantly gives relief." 



Sorrel (Rumex). 



Simplest growth of Meadow-sweet or Sorrel 

 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave. 



Sivinturne. 



Cresses that grow where no man may them see, 

 And sorrel, untorn by the dew-claw'd stag ; 

 Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag. 



Endi^mion, 



There flourish'd starwort and the branching beet 

 The sorrel acid and the mallow sweet 



Tfu Salad. 

 Here curling sorrel that again 

 We use in hot diseases 

 The medicinable mallow here . . 



NLuses Elysium, 



Sorrel and mallow seem to have been associates 

 anciently, perhaps because it was thought that the 

 virtues of the one would counterbalance those of the 

 other. " From May to August the meadows are 

 often ruddy with the sorrel, the red leaves of which 

 point out the graves of the Irish rebels who fell at 

 Tara Hill in the ' Ninety-eight,' the local tradition 

 asserting that the plants sprang from the patriots' 

 blood." 1 The Spaniards used to call sorrel, Agrelles 



1 Folkard. 



