Kildonan Times issue 52 August 2004

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KILDONAN TIMES
issue 52 August 2004

ERBS

In my discussions of herbs in all the issues of Kildonan Times, I present only general information. It is not intended to be a guide for the use of the herbs. If you wish to use any of the herbs described in Kildonan Times, consult an herbalist or a definitive guide book to using herbs.

ROSE HIPS

from Oberon's speech in Midsummer's Night Dream Act 2, Scene 1

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

The musk-rose is a very old cultivated English garden rose, while eglantine is a wild rose often called sweet-briar. Woodbine is honeysuckle. The Gaelic for woodbine is uillean, and for rose, ròs. You can learn the Gaelic names for many plants at Gaelic Names of Plants website.

The hip from a rose, the bulbous growth left after the flower has died, has been used for ages for food and medicine. Some rose hips are fairly little, but I have seen some as big as small apples.Rosa rugosa beach roses have big hips.

The common names for some varities of roses from which the hips are commonly used are:

Brier hip
Brier rose
Hip fruit
Hip rose
Hip tree
Sweet brier
Wild brier
Witch’s brier

Rose hips as a tea are good for all infections and bladder problems, due to the acidity in them. It is particularly good for digestion and to produce a diuretic effect without irritating the kidneys. For kidney stones or gravel; brier hips are used as a preventative or arrestant. By eliminating uric acid accumulations, brier hips help in gouty and rheumatic complaints. The hips should be picked when ripe, crushed, and boiled in water. After steeping, strain the tea and sweeten to taste.

Hips have a very strong sour acid/lemon flavor. It takes a lot of sweetening to make rose hip concoctions palatable, I think. But the "lemonade" flavor is good, and popular for many food flavorings. The most common food made from rose hips (and also petals) is jelly. Hips are high in vitamin C and A, and a nutritious food.

Here is a basic recipe for rose hip jelly. I used to make it from the wild roses around our place in Michigan, but I put apples in it for added flavor and pectin. Rose hips, like quince, add body and tartness to dishes, but not always a lot of flavor. This recipe does not call for apples; it is a pure rose hip traditional jelly.

ROSEHIP JELLY

4 quarts ripe rose hips
2 quarts water
1 package pectin crystals
5 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice

Instructions

Simmer rose hips in water until soft. Crush to mash, and strain through a jelly bag. Should make about 4 cups of rose hip juice. Add to juice, lemon juice and pectin crystals and stir until mixture comes to a hard boil. Stir sugar in at once. Bring to a full rolling boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove jelly from heat and skim off foam with metal spoon. Pour into hot sterilized jars.

Some other dishes prepared with rose hips can be found at the Cooking with Rose Hips web page.

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My basic herb references for the herbs I use either for food or medicine in this feature are: The Herb Book by John Lust (Bantam Books), Rodale's Encyclopedia of Herbs (Rodale Press) and Herbs by Lesley Bremness (DK Publishing), plus several websites.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.
Dave Barry (1947 - )

EDIEVAL FOODS

EARLY ENGLISH RECIPES

Following is a selection of recipes from A Book of Cookrye that has been translated into modern English - as far as thought necessary, that is. Many early English terms have been left to maintain the flavor and intent of the recipes. I'll be putting more of the book's recipes in Kildonan Times to come, but if you can't wait, go to the website for the translation, Book of Cookrye

The apple pie is essentially the way we make it today. Note the rose hip pie, with apples to add flavor.

A
BOOK OF
COOKRYE

Very Necessary for
all such as delight
therin.

Gathered by A. W.

And now newlye enlarged with the serving in of the Table.

With the proper Sauces to each of them convenient.

How to make a Tart of Brier hips.
Take Hippes and washe them, and boyle them in Claret wine, and straine them through a strainer, season them with Sinamon, ginger and Sugar, and make your paste, and fill it with the same stuffe.

How to bake Custards.
Take to every pinte of Cream five Egges, and put in no whites, and straine your Cream and Egges together, season it with Cloves & mace and sugar, and when your paste is well hardened in the Oven, having small raisins & dates put in your stuffe, and let it not bake too much, for much baking will make your Custard to quaile, or els to fail. Doucets after the same sort.

How to bake Orenges.
Faire peele your Orenges, and pick away all the white that is under the peele, and so lay them in fine paste, and put into them Sugar, very little Sinamon or none at all, but a little Ginger and bake them very leisurely.

How to bake Wardens (Pears).
Core your wardens and pare them, and perboyle them and laye them in your paste, and put in every warden where you take out the Core a Clove or twain, put to them Sugar, Ginger, Sinamon, more sinamon then ginger, make your crust very fine and somewhat thick, and bake them leisurely.

To make a Tarte of Cheese.
Take good fine paste and drive it as thin as you can. Then take cheese, pare it, mince it, and braye it in a morter with the yolks of Egs til it be like paste, then put it in a faire dish with clarified butter, and then put it abroade into your paste and cover it with a faire cut cover, and so bake it: that doon, serve it forth.

Tartes of Apples with covers.
Mince your Apples very small, season them with Sugar, sinamon & ginger, and laye thereon a faire cover, and dresse your cover when it is halfe baked with Rosewater and Sugar.

A Book of Cookrye, by A. W., London, 1591. Originally published 1584. STC 24897 -- Early English Text microfilms reel 1613:9. Transcribed by Mark and Jane Waks

OTES

SACRED TREES

Trees have been sacred to cultures the world over since civilization began. The Celts adapted tree lore from earlier cultures, and greatly enlarged on the worship and significance of trees. I use many of the best-known and oft-talked about trees in Clovenstone Chronicles, sometimes for their attributes, sometimes just for their contributions to the setting. I have particularly used juniper, oak, mulberry, and rowan. I was going to discuss the trees myself, but then I found this website that pretty much says it all. It gives some modern practices of trees in witchcraft, but they are all based on Celtic/Druidic traditions of hundreds of years ago.

The following material about sacred trees is copied from the website Celtic Knowledge

"To the Celts and many other peoples of the old world, certain trees held special significance as a fuel for heat, cooking, building materials and weaponry. In addition to this however, many woods also provided a powerful spiritual presence. The specific trees varied between different cultures and geographic locations, but those believed to be "sacred" shared certain traits. Unusual size, beauty, the wide range of materials they provided, unique physical characteristics, or simply the power of the tree's spirit could grant it a central place in the folklore and mythology of a culture. Even our modern culture finds that certain trees capture our imagination. The mighty oak, the mystical yew and so many others are reminders of the power that trees have on our lives.

APPLE (Domestic)
Another sacred tree to the Druids. It is said that you may cut an apple into three pieces, then rub the cut side on warts, saying: "Out warts, into apple." Then bury the pieces and as the apple decays, the warts will disappear. Use apple cider in any old spells calling for blood or wine. Apple indicates choice, and is useful for love and healing magic.

CEDAR
Also known as the Tree of Life, Arbor Vitae, Yellow Cedar. Ancient Celts on the mainland used cedar oil to preserve the heads of enemies taken in battle. To draw Earth energy and ground yourself, place the palms of your hands against the ends of the leaves.

ELM
A slightly fibrous, tan-coloured wood with a slight sheen. Elm is often associated with Mother and Earth Goddesses, and was said to be the abode of faeries, explaining Kipling's injunction; "Ailim be the lady's tree; burn it not or cursed ye'll be". Elm wood is valued for its resistance to splitting, and the inner bark was used for cordage and chair caning. Elm adds stability and grounding to a spell.

HOLLY
A beautiful white wood with an almost invisible grain; looks very much like ivory. Holly is associated with the death and rebirth symbolism of winter in both Pagan and Christian lore and is important to the Winter Solstice. In Arthurian legend, Gawain (representing the Oak King of summer) fought the Green Knight, who was armed with a holly club to represent winter. It is one of the three timbers used in the construction of chariot wheel shafts. It was used in spear shafts also. The qualities of a spear shaft are balance and directness, as the spear must be hefted to be thrown the holly indicates directed balance and vigour to fight if the cause is just. Holly may be used in spells having to do with sleep or rest, and to ease the passage of death. A bag of leaves and berries carried by a man is said to increase his ability to attract women.

MISTLETOE
Also known as Birdlime, All Heal and Golden Bough. It was the most sacred tree of the Druids, and ruled the Winter Solstice. The berries are poisonous! Bunches of mistletoe can be hung as an all-purpose protective herb. The berries are used in love incenses.

OAK
Oak has been considered sacred by just about every culture that has encountered the tree, but it was held in particular esteem by the Celts because of its size, longevity, and nutritious acorns. The oak was the 'King of Trees' in a grove. Magick wands were made of its wood."

A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITOR (me, Ruth)

It's July as I write this, and I am sitting in a small travel trailer at the side of Lake Muncho along the Alaska Highway, in the Canadian Rockies. There are many beautiful and scenic roads in the world, and the Alaska Highway ranks with the best of them. It's not only the scenery, but the knowledge that you are in a remote, true wilderness, where Mother Nature rules. It's raining. It's been raining all day. But if you know what to look for, a rainy day holds special treasures. Following is a quote from my log for today, a mini travelogue from the Far North:

But what a trip we had today! We turned west into the majestic peaks and deep valleys of the Canadian Rockies. Wisps and clouds of white mist floated along the ranks of great shadowy lines of mountains that nearly covered the sky as they faded into the grayness. The highway threaded through the remote and pristine wilderness, almost lost in the immensity of the land.

It never rained so hard that we couldn’t see our closer surroundings; in fact, we had a good half mile of visibility. Nature dons a special cloak in the rain. Roadside brush is shiny and dripping; little streams appear on the riverbanks. Colors are muted. We drove along between mountainsides and rain-fed hurrying milky rivers. One long riverbed was a wide stretch of gravel with meandering streams that parted and came together, never quite making up its mind whether it was a river or just a gravelly plain of willow-covered islets created by the rushing rivulets.

Other times we were far up on the side of the mountains, looking down into bottomless valleys. Many of the mountainsides up here in the North are treeless, just long slopes of rock and scree. As we came around a curve today, we could see two high, high bare mountains verging the road ahead of us. Rushing rain-streams made a lacey pattern on the dark slopes of their sides. Narrow falls plunged hundreds of feet, ran along as a stream, then plummeted over an escarpment again as the water found natural paths down the mountains. Mother Nature puts on shows like that only in the rain. A car ahead of us kept braking to look, and finally just pulled over to watch the display.

We had lunch at a turnout near a river. I stood for a few minutes in the rain on the way from the van back to Little Mobey {the travel trailer} just breathing the fresh air and absorbing the beauty of dark evergreen silhouettes against gray mountains. It was cold, though. We cozied into Little Mobey and heated up vegetable soup and peppermint tea for lunch. The rain pelted onto the roof and for a few minutes we could pretend we were in our oft-dreamed log cabin mountain hideaway.

And, as always, tell your aunts, uncles, cousins and friends about the novels of Clovenstone Chronicles. Give them an adventure!

Good Fate Be Yours —
Ruth

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