WOODCUT FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE FOURTH EDITION OF THE “GRETE HERBALL” (1561)
Other substances described are salt, cheese, pitch, lead, silver, gold, amber, water, starch, vinegar, butter, honey and the lodestone. The dissertation on water shows very clearly that our ancestors regarded bathing as a fad, and a dangerous fad at that. The writer gloomily observes, “many folke that hath bathed them in colde water haue dyed or they came home.” And those who are foolish enough to drink water he warns by quoting the authority of “Mayster Isaac,” who “sayth that it is impossible for them that drynketh overmuche water in theyr youth to come to ye age that God hath ordeyned them.” In the description of the lodestone we find the well-known popular belief about ships being drawn to their destruction. “The lodestone, the adamant stone that draweth yren hath myghte to draw yren as Aristotle sayth. And is founde in the brymmes of the occyan see. And there be hillis of it and these hyllis drawe ye shippes that haue nayles of yren to them and breke the shyppes by drawynge of the nayles out.” The accompanying illustration is of a sinking ship with a man going towards the hill of adamant with uplifted hands, while another man is swimming, and a third sits calmly in the ship.
In view of the free use of honey in olden times, the account of honey in the Grete Herball seems inadequate. “Hony is made by artyfyce and craft of bees. The whyche bees draweth the thynnest parte of the floures and partelye of the thickest and moost grosse and thereof maketh hony and waxe and also they make a substaunce that is called the honycombe. The tame hony is that that is made in the hous or hyues that labourers ordeyneth for the sayd bees to lodge and worke in. Hony is whyte in cold places and browne in warm place. And hony ought to be put in medicyne and may be kept C yeeres. There is an other that is called wylde hony and is found in woodes and is not so good as the other and is more bytter. Also there is a honey called castanea because it is made of chestayne floures that the bees sucketh and is bytter.”
In the Grete Herball, as in Banckes’s Herball, we find numerous instances of the use of herbs as amulets or for their effect on the mind, and for the smoking of patients with their fumes. I quote the following:—
“Betony. For them that be ferfull. For them that ben to ferfull gyue two dragmes of powdre hereof wt warme water and as moche wyne at the tyme that the fere cometh.”
“Buglos. To preserve the mynde. This herbe often eaten confermeth and conserueth the mynde as many wyse maysters sayth.”
“To make folke mery. Take the water that buglos hath bē soden in and sprynkle it about the hous or chambre and all that be therein shall be mery.”
“Vervain. To make folke mery at ye table. To make all them in a hous to be mery take foure leaves and foure rotes of vervayn in wyne, than spryncle the wine all about the hous where the eatynge is and they shall be all mery.”
“Musk. Agaynst weyknesse of the brayne smel to musk.”
“Struciūn. Against lytargye blowe the powdre of the sede in to the nose or elles sethe the sede thereof and juice of rue in stronge vyneygre and rubbe the hynder parte of ye head therwith.”