Save (salvia) is sage, still taken by country people in the form of tea. It was greatly esteemed formerly. Hence the proverb of the school of Salerno, “Cui moriatur homo dum salvia crescit in horto?” And still in another place (The Nonne Preestes Tale), Chaucer enumerates some herbs in common use:—
“A day or two ye shul have digestyves
Of wormes, er ye take your laxatyves,
Of lauriol, centaure, and fumetere,
Or elles of ellebor, that groweth there,
Of catapuce, or of gaytres beryis,
Of erbe yve, growing in our yerd, that mery is:
Pekke hem up right as they growe, and ete hem in.”
On this passage Skeat explains that the “gaytres beryes” were probably the berries of the Greek thorn, Rhamnus catharticus, which in Swedish is the goat berries tree = (A.S.) treow and goat = (A.S.) gate. The catapuce is the caper spurge. Skeat also quotes a passage from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy on the merits of these herbs. “Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and much prescribed, especially in hypochondrian melancholy, and because the spleen and blood are often misaffected in melancholy. I may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, and fumitory, which cleanse the blood.”
It was the property of every wort or herb to heal a man or to harm him. I have added a few to the list given above. Every herbalist or wise woman knew them and their properties.