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Welcome to Kildonan Times ezine! Kildonan Times is the occasional newsletter/ezine of the novel, Clovenstone, Stones Seven, and beyond to things medieval, Celtic, literary, and mythic. BACK ISSUES OF KILDONAN TIMES are published on the Kildonan Times website. If you wish to read or print any of the back issues, the Kildonan Times website can be accessed from pages on Clovenstone Chronicles or you can go directly to the website at Kildonan Times You can also subscribe to Kildonan Times at either site. KILDONAN TIMES 'Tis Beltainne! Welcome Summer!
AGRIMONY 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. *************************
Agrimony is a common weed, or wildflower, or medicinal herb, depending on your perspective. It grows well in pots, so can be an addition to your porch or patio herb garden. It has yellow flowers and hairy, interesting leaves, so works well in decorative capacity as well as for food and medicine. As a bonus, both the leaves and flowers have a pleasant scent. Agrimony has been around since the time of the Greeks, and probably before. It's a pretty common field flower in the United Kingdom. The Anglo-Saxons called it garclive and used it to treat wounds. The Greeks used it for eye problems. Early England used it for wounds, or mixed it with mugwort and vinegar for back pain. It was also thought to be a sedative. An old English medical journal said of agrimony: If be leyd under mann's heed, In more modern times, agrimony is popular as a throat gargle for singers and speakers, and for throat relief during colds or flu. John Lust recommends an infusion of 2 to 4 teaspoons or dried leaves to a cup of water for medicinal purposes. Chemically, agrimony is an astringent, and useful for stopping bleeding (thus its use for wounds), as a cleansing facial wash, or in the bath to sooth sore muscles. Agrimony tea can be drunk for pleasure, as they do in France, or for your health. The leaves contain both vitamins B and K. ************* 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.
My friend and fellow Lady Writer, Lovadell French, often sends me quotes that she finds. Here's a few of them... The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1995) What would men be without women? Santa Claus has the right idea ... Visit people only once a year. ~ Victor Borge Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. ~Alex Levine
CLOTTED CREAM, first hand from England (To get more background on the following reminisces, review the February Kildonan Times, Issue 57, for a discussion of clotted cream from medieval times to the present.) My good English friend, Syd Rutland of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, wrote me the following after he read the February issue of Kildonan Times. The discussion of clotted cream stirred some of his childhood memories. Syd's description brings to life the role of clotted (scalded) cream in the English culture with far more authentic color than my touristy ramblings ever could. "You talked about clotted cream recently. That brought back memories. Being born in early 1937 I was to a large extent brought up during the war and the immediate post-war years. Many things were rationed during this period: food-stuffs, clothing, petrol, for example. Being a child I was probably given the best of what food there was. I do remember my mother making clotted cream for me. Whether she made it during the war I do not know, for I remember it only at the time that my mother and I had returned to our home just outside Portsmouth after spending the war years with my grandmother near Horndean, about 10 miles further north on the road to London. My grandmother was a Devon girl and was alleged to have been brought up on Devonshire clotted cream. My mother made the cream in much the same way as you described. She slopped the cream out of the milk bottle (I don't think one could get semi-skimmed milk in those days; fat was good for you then!) into an aluminium 6-inch saucepan. All our pans were aluminium. This was about the top couple of inches in the bottle. I think she used two bottles if she had them. She then put an asbestos mat on the gas-stove (asbestos was good for you in those days, too), lit the smallest burner ring, and then turned it down to the merest pimple of flame, so low in fact that one had to be careful not to walk past the stove too fast lest the draught blew the flame out. It was then left to itself, I do not remember for how long, and eventually a thick crust of clotted cream formed. The gas was turned out, and when all was cool the cream was eased out using a fork or similar, anything that would support the cream but allow the skim under it to drain back into the saucepan. She usually put the cream into a small flat glass dish, such as you might stand a bottle of wine in nowadays. My mother would drink the skim, which I thought horrible, and usually I would have the cream on my cornflakes. With a sprinkling of sugar, food for the gods. If there was any left over we might have it on a slice of bread, butter, and jam, preferably the crust, from the white loaf, often still warm, when the baker brought to the house that day. The baker used faggot ovens; the bread was superb, the crust crisp so that flakes flew everywhere when one bit into it. I still tap a damp finger on any crust flakes or toast crumbs about my plate lest they be lost to the waste-bin, which must be a habit from my childhood. When Jill {Syd's daughter} was small I very occasionally made cream this way for her. My grandmother's husband, who died well-before I was born and was 25 years older than she - his first wife had died, was a dairyman. He kept cows in Portsmouth, and my mother remembers seeing the large flat pans that clotted cream was made in in the dairy at her home nearby."
May 1 is May Day, or in the traditional Celtic culture, Beltane (also spelled Beltine, Beltainne, Beltain, Beal-tine, Beltan, Bel-tien, and Beltein). Early on the Druids celebrated their god of fire, Bel (Bale), with lighting fires, later called "balefires." Some time later the festival got moved to spring, and was celebrated by the Celts for the warmth and fecundity of summer. The custom of lighting fires (among the many other customs such as May Poles and lying in spring flowers with your true love ) continues into the May celebrations. In traditional Celtic Wicca, it is the festival welcoming the "bright" half of the year. It is sometimes celebrated as "May Eve" or "Roodmas" on April 30. Celtic festivals run from sunset to sunset, and time is counted as the number of nights, not the number of days. (Samhuin, in contrast, signals the beginning of the "dark" half of the year, and is on November 1.) Stepping back a few hundred years, Thomas Pennant, in his A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, written in 1772, recorded Scottish village celebrations of Beltainne in his time. "On the first of May the herds{men} of every village hold their Beltein...They make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring...plenty of beer and whiskey, for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation; on that everyone takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to som eparticular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them; each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulder, says 'This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep' and so on. After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals. 'This I give to thee, O fox! Spare thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded-crow" and this to thee, O eagle!' " A couple of other Beltane customs were that churning at dawn would ensure a good dairy year, and that washing your face in the dew gathered before dawn, particularly from hawthorn or ivy leaves, would make you beautiful. Not just Beltainne, but all of May time inspired proverbs, customs, and superstitions. Here are some Scots proverbs for the month of May: "May showers make milk and meal." "Water in May, bread all year." "Better is snow in May than to be without rain." And at the last, a receipt for taking care of your health in the changeable weather of May: "In this month do not eat sheep's heads or trotters. Use warm drinks and take gentle curatives. Drink cold whey, and the juice of fennel and wormwood." by Maddygon Myddfai, a Welshman of the 1200s.
When I was first working in Maine as a park ranger, I came upon a rhodora one spring day on a mountainside. I had never seen one before, but I knew just what it was. At least, I thought I did. When I checked with a field guide, there it was, the delicate flower of May. Emerson's Rhodora has always been a favorite poem of mine. So this time, rather than ramble on (I've done plenty of that already in this issue.) I give you The Rhodora, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Enjoy the spring and May flowers!
And, as always, tell your aunts, uncles, cousins and friends about the novels of Clovenstone Chronicles. Give them an adventure! Order your copy of Clovenstone or Stones Seven from: or your local bookstore.
All art work and text © copyrighted by Ruth McIntyre-Williams unless otherwise noted. |
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ERBS
EDIEVAL FOODS
OTES
FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITOR (me, Ruth)
