Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/568

258 Folk-lore of Gerard's "Herball." Even the most cursory reading of Gerard's Herball brings home to one how much we lose by the lack of the old simple belief in the efficacy of herbs, to cure not only physical ills but also the mind and even the heart. This belief was shared by the greatest civilizations of antiquity, and it is only we foolish moderns who ignore the fact that "very wonderful effects may be wrought by the Virtues, which are enveloped within the compasse of the Green Mantles wherewith many Plants are adorned." Doctors are cautious folk nowadays, and it is wonderful to think of a time when the world was so young that people were brave and hopeful enough to imagine that they could cure or even alleviate another's sorrow. If ever anything so closely approaching the miraculous is attempted again, one feels sure that we shall turn as the wise men of the oldest civilizations did to God's most beautiful creatures to accomplish the miracle. In common with the majority of the old herbalists Gerard's faith in herbs was simple and unquestioning. Sweet marjoram, he tells us, is for those "who are given to over-much sighing." Again, "The smell of Basil is good for the heart … it taketh away sorrowfulnesse which commeth of melancholy and maketh a man merry and glad." "Bawme comforts the heart and driveth away all melancholy and sadnesse; it makes the heart merry and joyfull and strengtheneth the vitall spirits." Of the despised dead nettle he tells us that "the flowers baked with sugar, as roses are, maketh the vitall spirits more fresh and lively." Of borage, he quotes the well-known old couplet:

It is impossible to quote a tithe of what Gerard writes in this connection. But see also under buglos, rosemary, meadowsweet, vervain, water-mint, etc.

One well-known piece of folk-lore to be found in Gerard