The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser].

  • Bonser, Wilfrid, 1887-1972.
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    469/492 (page 429)
    VETERINARY MEDICINE AND CHARMS FOR LIVESTOCK 429 It is noticeable how often honey forms a constituent of herbal and other remedies. The contemporary Hebrew physician Donnolo (tenth century) also emphasizes its medicinal value. He gives pre cise instructions in his Precious Book as to the mixing of herb potions with honey. 1 Sigerist says that honey was used as a basis in prescriptions and also as an ingredient in drugs so as to make them more palatable: it was also considered a good preservative. 2 There are several Anglo-Saxon charms which relate to bees. Two passages in connexion with the use of honey in medicine occur in section 31 of the First Penitential in MS. C.C.C.C. 190. Section 8 runs: ‘If a mouse or a hen or similar creature, has fallen into oil or into honey, and there be found dead, let the oil be used for a lamp, and the honey for medical purposes (in medicinam), or in any other useful way.’ Section 18 runs: ‘If bees kill a man, they must be killed speedily: but let the honey be weighed out for medical purposes, or employed in other useful ways.’ A defective charm against theft of bees runs: ‘Put a plant of madder on your hive: then no one will lure away your bees, nor can they be stolen w'hile the plant is on the hive.’ 3 Beewort ( veneria ) derives its name from its connexion with bees: ‘That bees may not fly away, take this same herb . . . and hang it to the hive, then they will be stationary.’ 4 An eleventh-century Cambridge manuscript gives a charm for catching a swarm: Take earth. Throw it with thy right hand under thy right foot and say: T take under foot, I am successful. Lo, earth has power against every creature whatever and against malice.’ . . . Throw over [them] gravel when they swarm, and say: ‘Sit, ye ladies ( sige wif- —a name also applied to the Valkyries), sink, sink to earth. Never fly wild to the woods. Be ye as mindful of my good as is every man of food and estate.’ 5 With this should be compared a ninth-century Old High German Lorscher Bienensegen in the Vatican Codex Palatinus 220: 1 J. Leveen, ‘A pharmaceutical fragment of the 10th century in Hebrew by Shabbethai Donnolo’, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1927-8, xxi (Sect. Hist. Med.), 69. 2 H. E. Sigerist, Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen Rezeptliteratur , 1923, p. 172. 3 MS. Cotton Vitellius E. XVIII, fo. 136. (Quoted by Cockayne, vol. i, p. 397.) ' 4 A.S. Herbal, vii. 2. 5 MS. C.C.C.C. 41, p. 202, margin (quoted by Cockayne, vol. i, p. 384). Cf. Virgil, Georgies, iv, 11 . 86-87. Charm no. 1 in Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 132-41, q.v. for his notes.