Sweet Woodruff...

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Sweet Woodruff...

I live in zone 5 in the United States and I grow sweet woodruff as a hardy perennial on the north side of my house. It comes up year after year. Sweet woodruff used to be a strewing herb in the Middle Ages. Dried and mixed with fresh straw, it would be thrown on the floor of homes and even elegant castles to smell good and, hopefully absorb the filth!

Sweet woodruff can also be used in the making of an easy May Wine... I get an apple wine and throw sweet woodruff in it. In a few weeks I strain the wine, removing the sprigs of sweet woodruff.

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The History of Midsummer's Eve...

There is evidence that the summer solstice has been culturally important since the Neolithic era, with many ancient monuments throughout Eurasia and the Americas aligned with sunrise or sunset on the summer solstice. In the Julian calendar used in the ancient Roman world, the date of the summer solstice was the 24th of June and Marcus Terentius Varro wrote in the 1st century BC that the Romans saw this as the middle of summer. In the city of Rome, it was the festival of the goddess Fortuna. People thronged the River Tiber and rowed in boats to the temples of Fortuna; "after undisclosed rituals they rowed back, garlanded and inebriated". The Julian calendar had a flaw in that the solstices and equinoxes gradually fell on earlier dates. At the First Council of Nicaea (325), the Christian Church set the date of the spring equinox to the 21st of March on the Julian calendar, for the purpose of calculating Easter. This also brought the date of the summer solstice forward to the 20th of June. --- Wikpedia.

Hmmm...

(Giggle. Snort.) It seems that some misguided human souls think all faeries are beautiful... (Their worlds ARE beautiful) And... Well, --- some are truly beautiful. But, a lot, --- tsk-tsk, just aren't. The Unseelie especially, often AREN'T!!!... They are the boggles, scags, breaknecks, kelpies, redcaps, druggars, goblins, hags, fetches, fire-drakes, knockers, burnt-tails, raw-head-and-bloody-bones', spunks, boggarts, imps, men-in-the-oaks, bonelesses, incubusses, buttery spirits, sucubusses, hob-headlesses, buggaboos, spectres, wraithes, gringes, dopple-gangers, yeth-hounds, water leapers, vila, tritons, vodyanoi, gargoyles, fox spirits, pixies, salmanders, winged panthers, changelings, bull-beggars, spriggans, death-hearses, bolls, sirens, black dogs, giants, satyrs, leshys, pookas, noggles, krakens, manticores, madcaps, fiends, fates, swarths, bygorns, gringylows, bunyips, lamia, tengu, harpies, nixies, trolls, hobthrusts, shocks, salamanders and dragons of the for elements, --- water, fire, earth and air, of course. (To name only a few, --- believe it, or not!) ;)

I'm working on this... It takes place in ancient Eire and in the magnificent faerie lands (seen in the images, below) where the Dagda, the All-father, the High King of the Tuatha de Dannan, rules. Aonghus Mac Og, his seventh child, faerie god of love, youth and beauty, is the hero of "ELFSTROKE". Hmmm... The Bad Faeries are rebelling, and they're desperate. Queen of the Bad Faeries, Mab, has her blue hands full. There is a plague of impotency in the lands of the Unseelie. The Bad Faeries are convinced that bringing back the lovely and fragile extinct faerie race of pleasure slaves, the Myads, would be the remedy. Mab has her scientists working on a plan which has as it's basis using Aonghus as a sire and the beautiful human May Murphy, who has considerable Myad blood, as a vessel. Mab's problem: how to use her evil magic to get them together and somehow harvest their Myad offspring. Of course, Mab is as unscrupulous and manipulative a faerie queen who ever lived!

OKAY. OKAY. Who ARE The Fay???...

That's a question that's pretty hard to answer... According to some thought, there are two types of life: corporeal and in corporeal, --- or earthly and solid and spirit and unsolid. Faeries belong to the later type of life. It is believed that they perhaps "put on" physical form for the benefit or detriment of humans. Yes, --- the detriment, for many, many of the fay ARE NOT NICE. They are definitely NOT cute and cherubic sweeties, as they were thought to be and painted in pictures in Victorian Times. According to folklore, there are two governments of faeries: the Seelie Court, or the Good Fay, and the Unseelie Court, or the Bad Fay. According to some folklore and Shakespeare, King Oberon and Queen Titiana rule over the Good Fay and Mab, the Blue Faerie Queen. rules over the Bad Faeries. >>> Where did the Fay come from?... Some say they're extraterrestrials who came to earth in "dark ships" (cloaked?) eons ago. Others say they're evil spirits, demons from hell and fallen angels, or pagan gods. Others say they're the dead, or simply primitive nature spirits. >>> Will I ever see them?... According to folklore, seeing faeries as if you were looking at any solid object is so incredibly, incredibly rare that's it's hardly worth talking about, --- one person in many, many, many millions. Those who truly DID see faeries with their actual human eyes were, according to stories, whisked away by the fay immediately because faeries don't like to be seen! Some humans said they "saw'" the fay with an "inner eye," and that they sensed faeries just out of their actual eyesight. But, some people will never, ever have any faerie contact, --- the cruel of heart, the greedy, the spiteful and selfish. The fay love the very unselfish humans who will give and give without ever expecting anything back, who are gentle, heroic and strong, who will fight endlessly to protect the helpless and innocent and those who tenderly love animals and nature. >>> Are the Fay still with us?... Folklore says that they were everywhere in the Celtic Isles centuries and centuries ago and actually practically every nation and culture has tales of faeries, but that the fay have dwindled greatly because modernization and technology are their most serious mortal enemies. They have said, very sadly, and repeated and repeated that, --- "We go. We go..." But, do they REALLY GO???!!!... Faeries are very capricious and unpredictable. They delight in being that way!!! >>> WELLLLLLLLL!!!!!... NOW. that you know a bit about the fay, whether you believe they're REAL is REALLY, REALLY very much up to YOU!!!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't pour poison on the breast of our Mother, The Earth!!!...

The "Green Life" Is Such Fun...

I can hardly remember when I wasn't interested in plants. I love it all, - from wild woodlands where everything grows in a tangled jumble, to sculptured, formally structured gardens, like you might see on a castles grounds. [Although, I must confess a definite preference toward the wild side of gardening.]

***Please note: I live in Zone 5, in the U.S.A., if you plan to garden, according to my suggestions, you might have to adjust to your own growing conditions. The weather where I live gets to be hot and humid to frigidly cold, - 90 degrees, F., in July, - and can reach lows of -15 in January with mild lovely Springs with plenty of rain, and brisk glorious Autumns.

It's amazing, the variety of plants that can be called herbs: Did you know that roses are considered herbs?... Yes, roses are, of course, used in aroma therapy, and they are among the edible flowers. [I have eaten rose hip jelly. It's delicious!]

Some of my favorite herbs are: oregano, basil [Ah, that basil pesto!], rosemary, lavender, sage [I love the purple stemmed variety.], Lemon balm, the wide variety of mints and the scented geraniums - rose, lemon, apple and mint.

If you know me at all, you know that I love folklore. There are many faerie folk tales involving woodlands and the "green" life. Faeries love all wild natural places, all over the world, and detest that their environment is constantly being taken over by civilization and mechanization. I believe that this is the main reason why faeries are so vulnerable to iron and metals, and why anything to do with the fey should never, ever include such things!

If you want to make a faerie garden it should be in a peaceful place with sun and shade and where there is water, even if it's just a bird bath. It should have pretty shiny rocks and, perhaps, ferns and moss. Include some garden sculptures of gnomes, winged faeries and animals.

Happy gardening!...

Yes...

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Sweet Woodruff...

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Queen Mab, --- from "Romeo & Juliet"...

The Magnificent Faerie Horses of the Tuatha de Dannan...