DESCRIPTION:

This is the first ever comprehensive guide to the many ways in which wild plants (including seaweed, fungi, moss and lichens) have been used in Scotland from prehistoric times to the present day.

In the past, Scots believed that the proper use of plants could protect the community from evil spirits, make the harvest prosper, prevent milk from curdling and—perhaps most important of all—heal the sick. Strangely enough, many of the plant remedies, like the use of foxgloves, which were dismissed by modern scientists as superstition and old wives’ tales have since been found to be effective and are the basis of many new drugs.

Tess Darwin has delved deeply into the forgotten secrets of Scottish plant lore, gathering information from a wide range of sources—from old herbals to the most up-to-date scientific research. She has uncovered the uses and folklore of hundreds of plants—as an ingredient for food, as medicine, as a dye or the raw material for textiles, as fodder for livestock, and in traditional crafts like basket-making and thatching, wine-making and wood-carving.

EXTRACT:

Heather—‘in a typical dwelling…might have been found in the walls, thatch, beds, fire, floor mats, ale, tea, baskets, medicine chest and dye pot, being used to sweep the house and chimney, to feed and bed down sheep and cattle and to weave into fences around the farm.’

Ash—midwives gave ‘newborn babies sap from a green stick of ash held in the fire so that the juice oozed out…it seems to have been a way of giving the child the strength of the ash tree and protecting it from evil spells; the custom may have derived from an ancient belief that the first man was created from an ash tree…’

Nettle—the poet Thomas Campbell wrote: ‘In Scotland I have eaten nettles, I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth. The young and tender nettle is an excellent potherb. The stalks of the old nettle are as good as flax for making cloth.’

Seaweed—‘on Lewis in the seventeenth century, the rite carried out on All Hallows…was a curious mixture of Pagan and Christian belief. It began and ended at the church of St Mulvay, but involved someone wading into the sea and chanting to invoke the sea-god Shony, offering a cup of ale in return for a good crop of seaweed to fertilise the fields for the following year’.

Foxglove—‘In 1623 a Scottish woman called Isobel Haldane was tried for witchcraft and confessed to associating with fairy folk; she treated a changeling child with tea made from foxglove leaves and the child died…it is possible that the unfortunate Isobel was in fact a healer who knew the powerful medicinal effects of foxgloves but, ascribing to it magic powers she could not explain, used the plant unwisely…’

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction
Part 1: The Role of Wild Plants in Scotland
Part 2: The Plant Families
Bibliography
Index of Plants
General Index

REVIEWS:

‘A generous book, a model of research and organisation.’—Times Literary Supplement
‘Worthwhile and entirely relevant.’—BBC Wildlife Magazine