Have you ever stopped to think how many plants out there are for our healing benefit? Its like a puzzle, or a mystery that you need to solve, and from all the plants in the world (there are numerous) we have only discovered a handful of what they can do for us.
Even in centuries past, many people dedicated their time in finding a cure to heal the kings and queens, the knights and the upper classis back in the day.
I found a very interesting book called Old English Herbals by Elenore Sinclair Rohde. She goes back many centuries and it very interesting to read how they used to help people back in the olden days. They were serious about there herbs, chanting songs, and healing practices.
As I was reading what she wrote about the way they performed their healing, the chants that they would say, and the how precise the timing had to be or it would not work. Sometimes, it took days to get healed because you had to repeat the prosses over and over several times, and if you did not feel good, they would say that you did not do what was expected of you. Then you had to start all over again.
If you were healed, but felt weak they would say with time you well get your strength back .
Some of the herbs used back then are the same we use today, but they names are different. For example:
Wayboard = Plantain, Maythen = Camomile (Chamomile as it is known today) Wergulu = Nettle, Unfortraedd = Knotweed , Joy of Ground = Periwinkle,
These are just a few of the herbals mentioned. the Anglo-Saxons had at least 500 plants that they named and used. Many of these plants have not been used for healing in many years. We have forgotten about them and how they can help us. But there is a book called Leech Book and it is the oldest book persevered, it has survived centuries. This is a manuscript of how our ancestors used herbs. They not only used them for healing but also for enchantments, to keep the monsters at bay, for illness of cattle and horses. and swine.
Back then, a pandemic was called “flying venom” and they used nine herbs to help people heal and feel better, but you also have some healings that were done back in the day that were hideous.
And you thank god you were not born back in that era, yikes!
It was “live and learn” back then, and now, for some of us, we are learning once again what the herbs can do for us, and at the same time we need to be cautious of what we pick because some plants may look the same but are not the same, like the mushrooms are a good example.
Many mushrooms look the same but there may be a slight difference. So, you need to know what that difference is, if you are going out to pick herbals. It is smart to take a book with clear pictures and descriptions on what the plant looks like.