The Old English Herbals. Eleanour Sinclair Rohde
thou to him any word ere thou come to the wort which on the evening before thou markedst; then sing the Benedicite and the Pater Noster and a litany, delve up the wort, let the knife stick in it; go again as quickly as thou art able to church and let it lie under the altar with the knife; let it lie till the sun be up, wash it afterwards, and make into a drink with bishopwort and lichen off a crucifix; boil in milk thrice, thrice pour holy water upon it and sing over it the Pater Noster, the Credo and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and sing upon it a litany and score with a sword round about it on three sides a cross, and then after that let the man drink the wort; Soon it will be well with him.”—Leech Book, III. 62.
The instructions for a horse or cattle that are elf-shot runs thus:—
“If a horse or other neat be elf-shot take sorrel-seed or Scotch wax, let a man sing twelve Masses over it and put holy water on the horse or on whatsoever neat it be; have the worts always with thee. For the same take the eye of a broken needle, give the horse a prick with it, no harm shall come.”—Leech Book of Bald, I. 88.
Another prescription for an elf-shot horse runs thus:—
“If a horse be elf-shot, then take the knife of which the haft is the horn of a fallow ox and on which are three brass nails, then write upon the horse’s forehead Christ’s mark and on each of the limbs which thou mayst feel at: then take the left ear, prick a hole in it in silence, this thou shalt do; then strike the horse on the back, then will it be whole.—And write upon the handle of the knife these words—
“Benedicite omnia opera Domini dominum.
“Be the elf what it may, this is mighty for him to amend.”—Leech Book of Bald, I. 65.[15]
Closely allied to the doctrine of the elf-shot is that of “flying venom.” It is, of course, possible to regard the phrase as the graphic Anglo-Saxon way of describing infectious diseases; but the various synonymous phrases, “the on-flying things,” “the loathed things that rove through the land,” suggest something of more malignant activity. As a recent leading article in The Times shows, we are as a matter of fact not much wiser than our Saxon ancestors as to the origin of an epidemic such as influenza.[16] Indeed, to talk of “catching” a cold or any infectious disease would have struck an Anglo-Saxon as ludicrous, mankind being rather the victims of “flying venom.” In the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga, part of which is given below, the wind is described as blowing these venoms, which produced disease in the bodies on which they lighted, their evil effects being subsequently blown away by the magician’s song and the efficacy of salt and water and herbs. This is generally supposed to be in its origin a heathen lay of great antiquity preserved down to Christian times, when allusions to the new religion were inserted. It is written in the Wessex dialect and is believed to be of the tenth century, but it is undoubtedly a reminiscence of some far older lay. The lay or charm is in praise of nine sacred herbs (one a tree)—mugwort, waybroad (plantain), stime (watercress), atterlothe (?), maythen (camomile), wergulu (nettle), crab apple, chervil and fennel.
“These nine attack
against nine venoms.
A worm came creeping,
he tore asunder a man.
Then took Woden
nine magic twigs,
[&] then smote the serpent
that he in nine [bits] dispersed.
Now these nine herbs have power
against nine magic outcasts
against nine venoms
& against nine flying things
[& have might] against the loathed things
that over land rove.
Against the red venoms
against the runlan [?] venom
against the white venom
against the blue [?] venom
against the yellow venom
against the green venom
against the dusky venom
against the brown venom
against the purple venom.
Against worm blast against water blast against thorn blast against thistle blast Against ice blast Against venom blast … . … if any venom come flying from east or any come from north [or any from south] or any from west over mankind I alone know a running river and the nine serpents behold [it] All weeds must now to herbs give way, Seas dissolve [and] all salt water when I this venom from thee blow.”[17]
In the chapter in the Leech Book of Bald[18] containing the prescriptions sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to King Alfred, we find among the virtues of the “white stone” that it is “powerful against flying venom and against all uncouth things,” and in another passage[19] that these venoms are particularly dangerous “fifteen nights ere Lammas and after it for five and thirty nights: leeches who were wisest have taught that in that month no man should anywhere weaken his body except there were a necessity for it.” In the most ancient source of Anglo-Saxon medicine—the Lacnunga—we find the following “salve” for flying venom:—
“A salve for flying venom. Take a handful of hammer wort and a handful of maythe (camomile) and a handful of waybroad (plantain) and roots of water dock, seek those which will float, and one eggshell full of clean honey, then take clean butter, let him who will help to work up the salve melt it thrice: let one sing a mass over the worts, before they are put together and the salve is wrought up.”[20]
But it is in the doctrine of the worm as the ultimate source of disease that we are carried back to the most ancient of sagas. The dragon and the worm, the supreme enemy of man, which play so dominating a part in Saxon literature, are here set down as the source of all ill. In the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga the opening lines describe the war between Woden and the Serpent. Disease arose from the nine fragments into which he smote the serpent, and these diseases, blown by the wind, are counteracted by the nine magic twigs and salt water and herbs with which the disease is again blown away from the victim by the power of the magician’s song. This is the atmosphere of the great earth-worm Fafnir in the Volsunga Saga and the dragon in all folk tales, the great beast with whom the heroes of all nations have contended. Further, it is noteworthy that not only in Anglo-Saxon medicine, but for many centuries afterwards, even minor ailments were ascribed to the presence of a worm—notably toothache. In the Leech Book we find toothache ascribed to a worm in the tooth (see Leech Book, II. 121). It is impossible in a book of this size to deal with the comparative folk lore of this subject, but in passing it is interesting to recall an incantation for toothache from the Babylonian cuneiform texts[21] in which we find perhaps the oldest example of this belief.
“The Marshes created the Worm,
Came the Worm and wept before Shamash,
What wilt thou give me for my food?
What wilt thou give me to devour?
… . …
Let me drink among the teeth And set me on the gums, That I may devour the blood of the teeth And of the gums destroy their strength. Then shall I hold the bolt of the door. … . … So must thou say this, O Worm, May Ea smite thee with the might of his fist.”
Closely interwoven with these elements of Indo-Germanic origin we find the ancient Eastern doctrine which ascribes disease to demoniac possession. The exorcisms were