Here hore-hound ’gainst the mad dog’s ill
By biting, never failing.
Muses Elysium.
Pale hore-hound, which he holds of most especiall use.
Polyolbion, Song xiii.
Folkard says that horehound is one of the five plants stated by the Mishna to be the “bitter herbs,” which the Jews were ordered to take for the Feast of the Passover, the other four being coriander, horse-radish, lettuce and nettle. The name Marrubium is supposed to come from the Hebrew Marrob, a bitter juice. De Gubernatis writes that horehound was once regarded as a “contre-poison magique,” but very little is said about it on the whole, and it is an uninteresting plant to look at, and much like many others of the labiate tribe. Long ago the Apothecaries sold “sirop of horehound” for “old coughs” and kindred disorders, and horehound tea and candied horehound are still made to relieve the same troubles. Candied horehound is made by boiling down the fresh leaves and adding sugar to the juice thus extracted, and then again boiling the juice till it has become thick enough to pour into little cases made of paper.
Lady’s-smock (Cardamine pratensis).
Then comes Daffodil beside
Our ladye’s smock at our Ladye-tide.
An Early Calendar of English Flowers.
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.
Love’s Labour Lost, v. 2.