A restless little child was once handed during the church services in summer a bunch of Caraway seeds, and a goodly sprig of Southernwood. The little girl's mother listened earnestly to the long sermon, and was horrified at its close to find that her child had eaten the entire bunch of Caraway, stems and seeds, and all the bitter Southernwood. She was hurried out of church to the village doctor's, and spent a very unhappy hour or two as the result of her Nebuchadnezzar-like gorging.
Like many New Englanders, I dearly love the scent of Southernwood:—
"I'll give to him
Who gathers me, more sweetness than he knows
Without me—more than any Lily could,
I, that am flowerless, being Southernwood."
Southernwood bears a balmier breath than is ever borne by many blossoms, for it is sweet with the fragrance of memory. The scent that has been loved for centuries, the leaves that have been pressed to the hearts of fair maids, as they questioned of love, are indeed endeared.
Buckthorn Arch in an Old Salem Garden.
Southernwood was a plant of vast powers. It was named in the fourteenth century as potent to cure talking in sleep, and other "vanityes of the heade." An old Salem sea captain had this recipe for baldness: "Take a quantitye of Suthernwoode and put it upon kindled coale to burn and being made into a powder mix it with oyl of radiches, and anoynt a bald head and you shall see great experiences." The lying old Dispensatory of Culpepper gave a rule to mix the ashes of Southernwood with "Old Sallet Oyl" which "helpeth those that are hair-fallen and bald."
