The Cure for What Ails You ~ Cornish Remedies via Katherine Bone!

Mortal are we and subject to diseases,

We must all die, even and when God pleases,

Into the world but one way do we come,

A thousand ways from thence we are sent home.

Modern medicine has played a significant part in the longevity of people living in the 21^st Century. Given the resources at our disposal; family doctors, hospitals and emergency rooms, local pharmacies, and extended life expectancy, it’s difficult to understand how people dealt with common ailments like influenza, disease, and catastrophic injuries long ago. Especially when people died for reasons that were oftentimes classified as 'just rewards'.

In Cornish Sayings, Superstitions and Remedies, I’ve discovered how the Cornish people dealt with what ailed them. What I found is astounding! Given that Cornwall is a country unto itself, its people the descendants of Druids, Celts, Welsh, hearty fishermen and miners with ties to the earth, it makes perfect sense their way of life relied on legend, lore and superstition.

But before we look deeper into how Cornish people remedied maladies, let’s take a look at how long it took for penicillin to reach the general population.

Quick history of the discovery of Penicillin:

·         In Egypt, Greece and India, moulds were used to treat infections.
·         In Russia, warm soil healed infectious wounds.
·         In 150 BC Sri Lanka, soldiers prepared for war by cooking oil cakes for days and preparing poultices made from the cakes for battle injuries.
·         In 1600s Poland, wet bread mixed with cob webs was applied to wounds.
·         In 1640, the King’s Herbarian, John Parkinson, records the benefits of using mould in medicine.
·         In 1870 United Kingdom, the founder of St. Mary’s Hospital, Sir John Scott Burdon-Sanderson, discovers mould produces no bacteria.
·         In 1871, Joseph Lister, an English surgeon tests contaminated mould urine samples, describing the action on human tissue as Penicillium glaucum, for the first time.
·         In 1874, William Roberts studies moulds for bacterial contamination and notes bacteria is absent in Penicillium glaucum cultures.
·         In 1875, John Tyndall demonstrates Burdon-Sanderson’s Penicillium fungus’s antibacterial action to the Royal Society.
·         In 1923, Scottish biologist Sir Alexander Fleming cultivates mould and names the resulting culture, penicillin.

“Gurty milk an’ bearly-bread no lack,

Pudden-skins an’ a good shaip’s chack,

A bussa o’ salt pelchers, ’nother o’ pork,

A good strong stummick and a plenty of work.”

~ Old Cornish Rhyme

Cornish people are strong, stout-hearted survivors who believe in ghosts, ghouls and goblins. They’ve long believed giants will return to reclaim the moors, piskeys own the fields and mermaids rule the oceans. And they’ve used a mixture of herbs and lore to treat infections, disease, and maladies with superstition and remedies passed down through generations.

If penicillin isn’t handy, here are some Cornish remedies to soothe what ails you:

·         Snake bite? No problem. Adder bite is easily treated with plantain and salad oil. Or simply lay the bruised dead body of the adder on top of the bite as an infallible cure.
·         Catch a cold? Poor dearie. What you need is a drought of boiling water over a handful of herbs and swallowed while hot. If that doesn’t work, you could also bath your feet in mustard water and drink boiled cider or whisky with hot water and sugar. Elder tea made from dried elder flowers or leaves might do you good. Or drink juice from turnip slices with sugar in between.
·         Feverish? You need elderflower.
·         Got a cough? Find some Horehound.
·         Queasy, sick to your stomach? Chamomile and elder tea will purge what ails you.
·         Whooping Cough cramping your style? Slice an onion and layer it in a basin, alternately with brown sugar. Allow mixture to stand overnight. Just 2 tsps. of this syrup 3-4 times a day will chase your cough away. Children, sick with whooping cough, should run with sheep or tie a muslin bag full of spiders around their necks to ward off coughing spells.
·         Not getting enough Vitamin C? Treat your scurvy with extra burdock burs.
·         Aches and pains got you down? Use an ointment of mallow for your inflammations.
·         A south-westerly wind too breezy? Earaches are best remedied by applying a piece of cooked onion in a stocking to the affected ear.
·         Never underestimate the supernatural power of poultices.
·         Having trouble breathing? Treat your pneumonia with hot fomentations.
·         Don’t underestimate the power of a dead man’s tooth. Carry this infallible charm in your pocket.
·         Colic a problem? Stand on your head for fifteen minutes.
·         Can’t believe you ate the whole thing? If heartburn has gotten you down, use this cure of drying and powdering black spiders.
·         It ain’t over until the sick woman sings. Cut a live pigeon in half and lay the bleeding parts at her feet.
·         Bubble, bubble, boils are trouble. To cure a boil, creep on your hands and knees beneath a bramble grown into the ground at both ends. If that doesn’t work, you can always bore a hole in a nutmeg and tie it round your neck then nibble, nine mornings fasting.
·         Find an unusual lump? Place the hand of a man who committed suicide on your tumor and it will go away.
·         Bleeding much? Apply a church key to the wound to stop bleeding or use cobwebs.
·         Can’t breathe? Here’s a cure sure to ease your asthmatic symptoms. Roll spider webs into a ball and swallow them.
·         Got tuberculosis? This is very important. Take a spoonful of earth from the grave of a newly interred virgin, dissolve in water, and drink, fasting to cure decline.
·         Shingles a problem? Take blood drawn from a cat’s tail and smear it over the affected area.
·         Can’t stop bleeding? Draw a sign of the cross on wood, stone, or metal and bind over the wound, whether you be man or beast. And if your nose is bleeding, drop a key down your back.
·         Stye in the eye? Stroke the eye nine times with a wedding ring or a Tom cat’s tail.
·         Can’t get rid of your hiccups? Spit on the forefinger of your right hand and cross the front of the left shoe three times saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards. Scaring the affected person also helps.

When all else fails, visit a white witch, a peller, for traditional remedies that come in the shape of a wind charm. Though the Cornish language is nearly all but gone like wolves that used to cry and weep over the grassland, their love of life and the miracle of each sunrise and sunset lives on.

Resources:

Cornish Sayings, Superstitions and Remedies

Cornwall and Its People by A. K. Hamilton Jenkin

Cornish Folk Tales by Mike O'Connor

History of Penicillin

Cornish Ghosts and Legends

What are some of your family remedies?

Werewolf - Legend or Real? You Decide.

While flipping through the TV guide, I happened to see that Jack Nicholsen’s movie “Wolf” is on tonight. This is what spurred the idea of posting a blog article about werewolves.

As a child, I loved being scared by Lon Chaney when he played his wolfman character in the movies. Of course, when I’d go to bed, it seemed the eerie shadows cast against my bedroom wall by the moon’s rays were the werewolf coming to bite me. Like any frightened child, I hide under the covers—afraid to shut my eyes.

I suppose there’s a penchant in all of us that like being frightened. And perhaps this is why we’ve seen a revival in the popularity of werewolves and vampires in novels and on the big screen. (Don’t we all wish we’d written “Twilight?”)

The link between the werewolf of myth as been reshaped by Hollywood, with a medical condition known as lycanthropy, in which the patient develops a taste for raw meat and shows a tendency to howl and run around naked. At the time when the moon was full, anyone being bitten by the werewolf was eternally doomed to sprout a hairy pelt, howl at the moon, and run around scaring the bejeebers out of people.

But, where did the idea of werewolves and vampires originate? Let’s go all the way back to the wolf. Of all animals the wolf is perhaps the most feared in terms of superstition, being a favorite disguise of the Devil, and linked with evil. In times gone by, the mere sight of a wolf was supposed to be enough to render a man dumb, assuming that the wolf saw the man first. Even saying the world “wolf” risked an imminent encounter with one. According to Welsh legend the wolf was created not by God buy by the Devil and the creature has retained its association with evil ever since, being blamed for attacking livestock and humans alike.

This brings us to the werewolf. In pan-European superstition a man, who in certain circumstances, would change into a wolf and then hunt down and feed on human prey. Fear of werewolves is very ancient. People likely to become werewolves are said to include those who were born out of wedlock or had birthdays on Christmas Eve, and anyone who had unusually hair hands and flat fingers or eyebrows that met over the bridge of the nose. In legend some people could control their transformation, becoming wolves by donning wolfskin coats or belts.

Like the vampire, the werewolf was invulnerable to many forms of attack and could only be killed by a silver bullet, which should ideally have been blessed by a priest. Rather more simply, the infected victim may be cursed by calling out three times the Christian name of the person who had been transformed.

So, here’s a question for you. What actually is a werewolf or lycanthropy? Is it fact based on concrete evidences? Is it myth, fabrication of feeble minds? Is it an exaggeration of the wildly superstitious? If you have no answers to these questions—neither do I. All these questions have been puzzling mankind for the last 5 centuries.

Nonetheless, the werewolf phenomenon hasn’t perished yet; recent werewolf sightings are still being reported. You know, I just had a thought—I don’t recall ever reading about women who had become werewolves—only men. Hmmm?

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Roses--A Thorny Subject

The rose is perhaps the most significant of all flowers in terms of the superstitions attached to it. it is the flower of love, and in Victorian times specific interpretations were placed by lovers upon gifts of roses and certain colors. For example: a red rose symbolized passion while a white rose meant true love. This association with lovers and with the communication of secret passions also made the rose the emblem of discretion and silence. It’s image therefore is often found set into the ceilings of council chambers and other meeting places as a reminder that what is discussed there should remain private or ‘sub rosa’ – ‘under the rose’.

The red rose is said to have got its color either from the spilt blood of Christ, Venus or Adonis or, according to Islam, from the sweat of Mohammed’s brow. In ancient Roman times, roses were traditionally planted at gravesides in the belief that they had the power to protect the dead from evil. Over the centuries white rose, symbolic of innocence, have often been planted at the graves of virgins, while red roses have been planted on the graves of lovers or of philanthropists renowned for the love they showed their fellow men.

This association with death probably lies at the root of the body of generally pessimistic traditions now linked to the flower. Superstition warns that if a rose drops its petals while someone is holding it this is an omen that the person is soon to die. Roses that bloom out of season, meanwhile, are also disliked, as they are supposed to presage misfortune in the year to come.

Dreaming of roses may be interpreted as a prediction of success in love, but if they are white misfortune lies in store. The wild dog-rose is also reputed to be to be unlucky. It is thought to be unwise to make any plans in its vicinity, as its influence will blight the proposed undertaking.

One a more cheerful note, girls may use roses to identify their husband-to-be by wrapping a rose in white paper on Mid-summer’s Eve and keeping it until Christmas. Then it is unwrapped and, if still fresh, worn by the girl on her dress. The first man to admire the rose or remove it is destined to marry her. To determine how sincerely one is loved, a person has only to snap the stem of a rose—the louder the noise produced, the stronger the passion.

The rose has various uses in folk medicine, too. In England in the eighteenth century it was alleged that it could promote fertility, and women who wanted to bear children wore red roses in small bags around their necks. The gall of the rose (an abnormal growth caused by insects, fungi, bacteria or injury) was thought to be an effective cure for whooping cough and toothache if worn around the neck, and would combat insomnia if placed beneath the sufferer’s pillow.

There is a modern day saying that ‘Life is a bed of roses’. I’m certain people think that because rose petals are velvety to the touch and that roses have soothing aromas that the saying means that life is wonderful or that life is easy. However, consider that rose bushes bear thorns. Now apply that same saying to life. Rose thorns prick the flesh and bring pain. Therefore, with all of life’s beauty it also brings heartache. So given all the above information about roses, which analogy do you think is appropriate to life – pleasure or pain?

www.lorettacrogersbooks.com

Silly Superstitions About Petticoats & Yellow

Who would ever think that superstition would center around something as simple as a woman’s petticoat? Well, certainly not me. Goes to show how much I know, and why it’s important to do research when writing novels.

It appears that in the Victorian era long-standing tradition has it that a girl whose petticoats show beneath her dress is loved more by her father than by her mother. In other research, it stated that if an unmarried lady who slept with one of her petticoats under the pillow would ensure that she would enjoy dreams about her future husband. In still another place, I found the following poem that was often recited by young ladies:

This Friday night while going to bed,
I put my petticoat under my head,
To dream of the living and not of the dead,
To dream of the man I am to wed.
The colour of his eyes, the colour of his hair,
The colour of the clothes he is to wear,
And the night the wedding is to be.

According to the Portuguese, meanwhile, a woman who fears she is threatened by the ‘evil eye’ can escape harm by wearing seven petticoats at once.

An old wives tale stated that if a bride wore a yellow petticoat under her gown, it meant she was ashamed of her fellow: “to wear a petticoat of yellow, she is ashamed of her fellow.”

Speaking of the color – yellow- it was considered one of the unluckiest of all colors. It was and perhaps still is generally associated with cowardice, sickness and death (though some people connect it with the life-giving sun). Yellow leaves that appear on peas or bean plants are supposed to presage a death in the household and even evil spirits are said to avoid the color. Even in today’s modern society, actors and actresses are sometimes reluctant to wear yellow.