ILLUSTRATIONS FROM TURNER’S “HERBAL”
Throughout the Herbal there are recollections of the north of England, where the author spent his boyhood. Of heath, for instance, he tells us: “The hyest hethe that ever I saw groweth in Northumberland, which is so hyghe that a man may hyde himself in.” Of the wild hyacinth he writes: “The boyes in Northūberland scrape the roote of the herbe and glew theyr arrowes and bokes wyth that slyme that they scrape of.” Of sea-wrake (seaweed) he tells us: “In the Bishopriche of Durham the housbandmen of the countie that dwel by the sea syde use to fate [fatten, i. e. manure] their lande with seawrake.” Under “birch” we find: “Fisherers in Northumberland pyll off the uttermost barke and put it in the clyft of a sticke and set in fyre and hold it at the water syde and make fish come thether, whiche if they se they stryke with theyr leysters or sammon speres. The same,” he continues, “is good to make hoopes of and twigges for baskettes, it is so bowinge. It serveth for many good uses and for none better then for betinge of stubborne boyes that ether lye or will not learne.”
Cudweed “is called in Northumberland chafwede because it is thought to be good for chafyng of any man’s fleshe wyth goynge or rydynge.” And it would be interesting to know if the daisy is still called banwurt in the north. “The Northern men call thys herbe banwurt because it helpeth bones to knyt agayne.... Plinie writeth that the dasey hath III and sometimes IV little whyte leves whiche go about the yelow knope, it appereth that the double Daseys were not founde in plinies tyme whych have a greate dele mo then Plini maketh mention of.”
There are other country customs which he records. “Shepherds use clivers [goosegrass] in stede of a strayner to pull out here of the mylke;” “birderers [bird-catchers] take bowes of birch and lime the twigges and go a bat folinge with them;” “som make a lee [lye] or an ashy water of the rotes of gentian wherwyth they toke out spottes very well out of cloth.” He mentions woad as “trimmed wyth mannes labor in dyenge and wull and clothe,” and teazle “which the fullers dresse their cloth wtall.” Apparently Turner gave the spindle tree its name, for he says: “I coulde never learne an Englishe name for it. The Duche men call it in Netherlande, spilboome, that is, spindel tree, because they use to make spindels of it in that countrey, and me thynke it maye be so well named in English seying we have no other name.... I know no good propertie that this tree hath, saving only it is good to make spindels and brid of cages” [bird cages].
The use of complexion washes was a custom on which Turner was alarmingly severe. There are fewer beauty recipes in his herbal than in any other—only four altogether. “Some weomen,” we find, “sprinkle ye floures of cowslip wt whyte wine and after still it and wash their faces wt that water to drive wrinkles away and to make them fayre in the eyes of the worlde rather then in the eyes of God, whom they are not afrayd to offend.” And of marygold we learn that “Summe use to make theyr here yelow with the floure of this herbe, not beyng contēt with the naturall colour which God hath geven thē.”
There is curiously little folk lore in this herbal, and most of it is guarded by “some do say” or “some hold.” Nevertheless, with this qualification, Turner gives us fragments of folk lore not to be found in other herbals. For instance, that nutshells burnt and bound to the back of a child’s head will make grey eyes black, and that parsley thrown into fish ponds will heal the sick fishes therein. Again, this is the first herbal in which any account is to be found of the very old custom of curing disease in cattle by boring a hole in the ear and inserting the herb bearfoot.[70]
“They say it should be used thus. The brodest part of the ear must have a round circle made about it wt the blood that rinneth furth with a brasen botken and the same circle must be round lyke unto the letter O, and when this is done without and in the higher part of the ear the halfe of the foresaid circle is to be bored thorowe with the foresaid botken and the roote of the herbe is to be put in at the hole, when yt newe wounde that hath receyued it holdeth it so fast, that it will not let it go furth, then all the mighte and pestilent poison of the disease is brought so into the eare. And whilse the part which is circled aboute dyeth and falleth awaye yt hole beast is saved with the lose of a very small parte.”
Another piece of folk lore is remarkable because it is the only instance in an English herbal of a belief in the effect of a human being on a plant: “If ye woulde fayne have very large and greate gourdes, then take sedes that growe there [in the sides].... And let weomen nether touche the yonge gourdes nor loke upon them, for the only touchinge and sighte of weomen kille the yonge gourdes.” This belief he quotes from Pliny.