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.On the medical side it was held to be effective for the treatment ofdiabetes, rheumatism, and various diseases connected with the womb and withmenstruation; one early name for it was Motherwort.In Scotland the plant wasthought to be a cure for tuberculosis, and a rhyme attributed to a mermaid urgesyoung girls to eat mugwort:If they wad drink nettles in MarchAnd eat muggons in MaySae mony braw maidensWad no gang to clay.(Chambers n.d.: 331)It is worth noting that this advice was said to be given by a female supernatural154  Mistress of Life and Death being, and it becomes understandable why Laima, who wept when young girlsdied unmarried, was said to reside in wormwood and mugwort (see p.127).Armstrong gives instances of its association with goddesses in the Far East andin Mexico, while in Ancient Greece it was said to grow on the mountain of Artemis(Armstrong 1943: 26).Another possible indication of the link between healing plants and thegoddess is the surprisingly large number of flowers called after the Virgin Maryin later times, such as Our Lady s Bedstraw and Our Lady s Mantle.Such namesare applied to different flowers in various parts of the country, as Geoffrey Grigson(1955) has shown in his Englishman s Flora.Some, like  Virgin s Bower for theclematis, or  Rosemary , appear not to have been originally associated with theVirgin Mary (Friend 1883: 80ff.), while others, like  Marybud for the marigold,gained their names because they were used to decorate churches for the Virgin sfestivals (Friend 1883: 101).However, some flowers linked with the goddess inpre-Christian times may afterwards have been named after the Virgin.Our Lady s Bedstraw (Galium verum), a plant used to curdle milk incheesemaking in northern Europe, was said to have been used with bracken forthe bed in which Christ was born, after which the flowers changed from white togold (Grigson 1955: 343).In Germany the plant was put into the bed of a womanin childbirth, and also into her shoes for protection after the birth.Our Lady sMantle (Alchemilla), which collects water drops in its leaf clusters, was alsorenowned for its special powers.In Scotland and Ireland it was held to cure elfshotin cattle, and generally thought to heal wounds, stop bleeding, and to help womento conceive (Grigson 1955: 138).The names of both these plants appear to have come into England fromGermany, where they were known as Unser Frauen Bettstroh/Marien Bettstrohand Frauen or Marien Mantel, while Mary s Mantle (Marikaabe) was a nameused in Norway.In Scandinavia the early purple orchid (Orchis maculata) wascalled Mary s Keys, and this was placed in the bed of a pregnant woman to helpin childbirth (see p.149).In Germany the same name might be given to the cowslipor primrose.The Lady s Thistle (Silybum marianus) has marks on its leaves resemblingmilk, said to be caused by the Virgin s milk dropping on it as she suckled theChrist Child.Evelyn in the seventeenth century had heard that this plant increasedthe flow of milk for nursing mothers (Grigson 1955: 388).Our Lady s Thistle issimilarly named in France and Germany.The Puritans felt sufficiently strongly about such flower names to substituteVenus for Our Lady, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the Virgin hassometimes replaced an earlier supernatural figure.Names of Frigg or Freyja wereretained in some flower names in Scandinavia: Grimm (1883: I, 303) mentions theIcelandic name Freyjuhar (Freyja s hair) for the Lady s Hair Fern (Adiantumcapillus veneris).The Bedstraw (Galium verum) was called Freyjar gras (Freyja sWeed) in Sweden, and later Jungfru Marie Sanghalm (Virgin Mary s Bedstraw)155  Mistress of Life and Death (Närrström 1995: 212).Alongside the extensive learned literature on herbs usedin the medieval monasteries noted by Bonser (1963: 306ff.) and Meaney (1981:38ff.), there must have been traditional women s lore concerning useful plantsand flowers originally associated with the goddess.However, the search for healing by divine help extended far beyond thepractices in the home, and was something of major importance for men and womenalike.In their helplessness in the face of sickness, accidents and death they turnedto both gods and goddesses for reassurance and aid, and undoubtedly thegoddesses were deemed to possess great healing powers.In Celtic areas there is much evidence for such powers linked with thegoddesses of streams and springs and the sources of great rivers.When theRomans established their rule in Gaul and Britain, they appear deliberately tohave developed and commercialized some of the sites at thermal springs to whichpeople went for healing, as clearly happened at Bath (Cunliffe 1986).Here a numberof hot springs known to have natural therapeutic powers, especially effective forarthritis and gout, had already made the site a sacred place to which people camefor healing.Soon after the Roman occupation an impressive temple with a bathingcomplex was built around it, attracting vast numbers of visitors who left richgifts behind.About the end of the third century AD, the temple was enlargedand access to the springs restricted.The pool formed by the main spring of hotwater was roofed over by a considerable feat of engineering, so that the onlyaccess for visitors was through a dim passage-way into a mysterious grotto,where the hot water surged out from a cavern in a cloud of mist and steam, addinggreatly to the impressiveness of the sacred place.The goddess who presided over this temple was called Sulis Minerva, aconflation of the local goddess, Sulis, with the Roman Minerva, goddess ofwisdom and crafts, and therefore presumably of medicine (M.J.Green 1996: 33).Finds of Celtic coins suggest that offerings were being made to the goddessbefore the Romans developed the site (Cunliffe 1986: 1) [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]

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