Once Upon a Thyme

Dania Ber­inde

Once upon a time, be­fore Al­ex­an­der Flem­ing dis­covered an­ti­bi­ot­ics, herbs, plants and spices were used as a mean of treat­ment for vari­ous ill­nesses. The dis­cov­ery of these came rather ac­ci­dent­ally with the pre­his­toric man wrap­ping the meat in dif­fer­ent leaves taken from bushes and thus real­iz­ing that the taste has changed. But the prop­erty of plants and herbs don’t stop here, it goes bey­ond the culin­ary pref­er­ences, right into medi­cine and even lit­er­at­ure. Of course, the healer of past times be­lieved that an ill­ness was caused by a mal­efi­cent spirit resid­ing in the hu­man body (the an­im­istic be­lief) and only with the help of spells and herbs can one be cured, but the healer of present times might re­com­mend a cer­tain herbal ex­tract to help with a light af­flic­tion in case the con­ven­tional medi­cine proves to be in­suf­fi­cient. Moreover, po­ets and writers rely on herbs to of­fer sig­ni­fic­ance to their work, toy­ing with sym­bols like the tra­gic love between Isa­bella and Loren­zois rep­res­en­ted by a pot of basil. 

But don’t let the title mis­lead you, the present art­icle is not ded­ic­ated to how Sleep­ing Beauty dis­covered that lav­ender helped her sleep, nor is it en­tirely ded­ic­ated to thyme as a herb and its prop­er­ties, but it tracks down the pres­ence of vari­ous herbs show­ing how they crept up in lit­er­at­ure with few people no­ti­cing. So the title is quite sug­gest­ive and makes use of the ho­mo­phony time / thyme. So from now on, each chapter is go­ing to be ded­ic­ated to a cer­tain herb, show­ing its ori­gin, prop­er­ties and how po­ets and writers used this herb in their works of art. 

Back in thyme

I am pretty sure most people don’t have this herb in their kit­chen, but I am pos­it­ively sure I know the reason why, it’s be­cause they haven’t found out that thyme is one of the most chiv­al­rous herb of them all. Its his­tory is, ac­cord­ing to Our Herb Garden, filled with knights in shin­ing ar­mour, fair­ies, cour­age, sac­ri­fice, smoke and even love po­tions. But un­til we get to that, I would like to tell you a little bit about the ori­gin of this herb, the same source men­tions that the name comes from the Greek thumos and/or the Latin fu­mus which both mean smoke and an­other the­ory on thyme his­tory refers to Tourne­fort (1656 – 1708), who says that the name thyme comes ‘from the mind’ be­cause it was used as a treat­ment for faint­ing. Like with all herbs and plants, its first us­age was medi­cinal, even more, the old­est re­port of thyme use is ap­par­ently in the Ebers Pa­pyrus, from an­cient Egypt about 1550 BCE where it was used medi­cin­ally. (Keeler, “Plant Story.”)

The pres­ence of this herb in his­tory and folk­lore is even richer, ac­cord­ing to the same source lis­ted above, it even con­tains Bib­lical ref­er­ences, the manger where Mary gave birth to the in­fant Je­sus, was said to have in­cluded thyme, woo­droof, and ground­sel, so it is a women’s herb and due to its an­ti­sep­tic prop­er­ties it was of­ten placed around those about to give birth. 

Go­ing to me­di­eval times, thyme was a sym­bol of bravery and cour­age and ladies ‘would em­broider a mo­tif of a bee hov­er­ing over a sprig of thyme on the token they would give to their fa­voured knight.’ (qtd. in “Thyme Travel: His­tory of Za’atar”) Still in the same period the thyme was used as herb for puri­fy­ing a space in or­der to pre­pare for ma­gical rituals and most of­ten it in­cluded fair­ies. Moreover, ac­cord­ing to Dan­ish and Ger­man folk­lore fair­ies prefer to dwell around patches of wild thyme and this herb can be used to make an oint­ment which al­lows any­one to ac­tu­ally see fair­ies, but this is pos­sible only if thyme was gathered “neare the side of a hill where fayries used to be.”( qtd. in “Thyme.” Our Herb Garden). The link between thyme and fair­ies is even stronger since Wil­liam Shakespeare in­cluded it in A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream as a place where Fairy Queen Ti­tania sleeps, clearly mark­ing it as a pre­ferred spot:

‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nod­ding vi­olet grows,

Quite over-can­op­ied with lus­cious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Ti­tania some­time of the night,’

(Shakespeare, A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, 20)

Scot­tish tales con­tain plenty of ref­er­ences to fair­ies and their deeds. Sorche Nic Leod­has tells the story of young prin­cesses and lords in his book en­titled Thistle and Thyme – the first is a sym­bol of Scot­tish lands and the lat­ter an in­dic­a­tion to­wards the pres­ence of fair­ies. In his book of le­gends and tales he tells the story of the daugh­ter of a lord who wants to marry a shoemaker’s son. In her at­tempt to marry the man she loves a fairy aids her and the creature is in­tro­duced in cor­rel­a­tion to the place fair­ies like to dwell, ‘she came upon a wee small old man sit­ting on the bank at the side of the lane with his head in his hands’ (Thistle and Thyme, 21). In Nor­we­gian tales thyme is not linked to fair­ies, but trolls, Red­fox and Aske­lad­den (“Red­fox and Aske­lad­den.”) tells us the story of Aske­lad­den, a peasant’s boy who saves the daugh­ters of the king from a troll by learn­ing that he is afraid of thyme. He pro­tects his lands by spread­ing thyme and us­ing an oint­ment with this herb on all the an­im­als. Later in the story Aske­lad­den kills the troll after strap­ping him on a pole with thyme.

As said above, thyme is also an in­gredi­ent when mak­ing a love po­tion, ac­cord­ing to Our Herb Garden on St. Luke’s Day, Oc­to­ber 18th, young girls are to do the following: 

“Take marigold flowers, a sprig of mar­joram, thyme, and a little worm­wood; dry them be­fore a fire, rub them to powder, then sift it through a fine piece of lawn; sim­mer these with a small quant­ity of vir­gin honey, in white vin­egar, over a slow fire; with this anoint your stom­ach, breasts, and lips, ly­ing down, and re­peat these words thrice:

‘St Luke, St. Luke, be kind to me,

In dream let me my true love see!’ 

This said, hasten to sleep, and in the soft slum­bers of night’s re­pose, the very man whom you shall marry shall ap­pear be­fore you.” (qtd. in “Thyme.” Our Herb Garden)

This herb has made the cross­ing from medi­cinal use into lit­er­at­ure to sig­nify force, strength and a re­pel­lent agent for evil creatures. Its sig­ni­fic­ance changes ac­cord­ing to the re­gion and writer, but it still re­mains a sym­bol for courage. 

Laven’ der story

I think there is no other plant more loved and es­teemed that lav­ender, partly due to its an­ti­sep­tic and health be­ne­fits and partly due to its sweet scent. But this plant has a con­tro­ver­sial past since it was of­ten con­fused with nard, be­cause of its power­ful scent and re­semb­lance. Ac­cord­ing to Our Herb Garden, its ori­ginal name was spikenard and it was later changed into lav­ender from the Latin term lav­are, to wash, be­cause in An­cient Rome, people would use this plant in their bath to scent the wa­ter (“Lav­ender,” Our Herb Garden). But ac­cord­ing to the same source, there is an­other ex­plan­a­tion for the change in name, Turner says in his work A New Herb­all (mid 1500s) that this plant was used to wash the head of a per­son suf­fer­ing from a men­tal dis­ease. An­other pop­u­lar be­lief tells the story of young ladies be­ing ready for mar­riage when they sew their own clothes and store them with lav­ender bouquets. 

Through­out his­tory the pres­ence of this plant is un­dis­put­able, al­though it suffered many changes in name. It the be­gin­ning it was called Nar­dus be­cause it was mainly sold in a city from Syria called Naarda. Later we dis­cover a Bib­lical rep­res­ent­a­tion, it is said that Mary Mag­deline used spikenard oil (pos­sibly it re­ferred to lav­ender not nard) to anoint the feet of Je­sus. Go­ing to Egypt, King Tutankhamen’s tomb was sealed with lav­ender in­side and upon re­open­ing, it still kept some of its fra­grance. When this plant was brought to Eng­land (in the 12^th cen­tury), it rap­idly be­came pop­u­lar, it is said that Queen Eliza­beth I pre­ferred this plant in a spe­cial con­serve made with lav­ender flowers. Moreover, ac­cord­ing to Our Herb Garden, when the plague hit, a con­coc­tion was made called Four Thieves Vin­egar that con­tained lav­ender as a main in­gredi­ent (per­haps to mask the scent of gar­lic and vin­egar) and it was said that it could pro­tect people from this ter­rible dis­ease (“Lav­ender – Part 2” Our Herb Garden).

It comes as nat­ural for this plant to be men­tioned in lit­er­at­ure, Wil­liam Shakespeare men­tions lav­ender in his play Winter’s Tale, (pub­lished in 1623) in act IV, scene 4, when de­scrib­ing a summer’s garden and the art nature has cre­ated with them: 

”Here’s flowers for you;

Hot lav­ender, mints sa­voury, marjoram;”

(Shakespeare, “Win­ter’s Tale”)

Even Vic­torian po­ets have a pref­er­ence for this plant, Al­fred Lord Tennyson men­tions lav­ender in his poem Ode to Memory, pub­lished in the first volume of Poems (1842) to sig­nify the beauty of nature that is lost to the passing of time, its beauty re­main­ing only in the memory of people:

‘Of crowned lilies, stand­ing near

Purple-spiked lavender: 

Whither in after life retired 

From brawl­ing storms, 

From weary wind, 

With youth­ful fancy re-inspired’ 

(Tennyson, “Ode to Memory”)

In prose lav­ender is men­tioned in Miguel de Cer­vantes’ Don Quix­ote as an ex­pres­sion to sig­nify that he will face all the battles: ‘it is not to a wed­ding we are bound, but to go round the world, and play at give and take with gi­ants and dragons and mon­sters, and hear hiss­ing and roar­ing and bel­low­ing and howl­ing; and even all this would be lav­ender, if we had not to reckon with Yangues­ans and en­chanted Moors.’ (Cer­vantes, Don Quixote,845)

But the greatest sig­ni­fic­ance of this plant is cor­rel­ated with love. Ac­cord­ing to folk­lore (“Lav­ender – Part 2.Our Herb Garden), to of­fer or re­ceive lav­ender was a sym­bol of de­vo­tion and couples would place lav­ender un­der the bed sheets in or­der to in­spire con­jugal pas­sion. But there is also a con­tra­dic­tion, lav­ender used in com­bin­a­tion with rose­mary can pre­serve vir­tue. But the greatest say­ing tells us more, if a young wo­man wants to know who her true love is, she should drink lav­ender tea on St. Luke’s day, the 18^th of Oc­to­ber, so this say­ing comes as an ad­di­tion to the thyme anointment. 

Going third basil

I would dare say that today few people use basil in their kit­chen, it really isn’t such a pop­u­lar plant, al­though herb en­cyc­lo­pae­dias note (“Basil.” Herbal En­cyc­lo­pe­dia) that it has plenty medi­cinal be­ne­fits, such as re­liev­ing head­aches, sore throats, coughs, nausea and it can even de­crease nervous ten­sion. Basil be­longs to the Lami­aceae fam­ily (mints), so it’s use­ful with di­gest­ive prob­lems and it also has an­ti­bac­terial prop­er­ties. But this herb had so more much sig­ni­fic­ance in the past. Ac­cord­ing to Lauren Holt­for the Greeks and the Ro­mans basil meant hatred, but later on, for Itali­ans, this herb was as­so­ci­ated with love. In the Middle Ages it was thought that scor­pi­ons and worms are con­jured from basil leaves. Moreover, in the 1500s it was be­lieved that simply smelling basil would breed scor­pi­ons of the mind (Mil­ner, “Basil”). But this dif­fer­ent sym­bol­ism is some­what ex­plained in the Vic­torian era when com­mon basil was as­so­ci­ated with hatred and sweet basil with love. This herb also car­ries bib­lical ref­er­ences, it is said that basil grew at the site of Chris’s cru­ci­fix­ion as a sym­bol of puri­fic­a­tion, pro­tec­tion and love. Si­cilian folk­lore as­so­ci­ates basil with both love and death and in Mol­davia if a man ac­cepts basil from a wo­man, he will fall in love with her. So we can see that its pres­ence in folk­lore is vast and it car­ried vari­ous mean­ings through­out time.

In lit­er­at­ure, the most rep­res­ent­at­ive work that men­tions basil is Isa­bella or the Pot of Basil by John Keats, pub­lished in 1820 (“Isa­bella an­not­ated”), a nar­rat­ive poem ad­ap­ted from a story in Boc­ca­cio’s De­cameron (IV, 5). This poem tells of the tra­gic love story between Lorenzo, of the work­ing class and Isa­bella of up­per so­cial strata, so they can never be to­gether. After Lorenzo is killed by her broth­ers, he shows up in her dreams and asks her to find his body. After she dis­cov­ers him she bur­ies him in a pot and plants basil to sig­nify her eternal love for him:

‘She wrap­p’d it up; and for its tomb did choose 

 A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,

And cov­er’d it with mould, and o’er it set

Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.’

(Keats, Isa­bella or the Pot of Basil)

Basil is also ex­tremely im­port­ant in witch­craft and this herb can help in many situ­ations, start­ing from money mak­ing and end­ing with ali­en­at­ing a loved one. For ex­ample, in or­der to bring fin­an­cial wealth into your life, you should ‘Spring dried basil near your desk or tie it in a drawstring bag with some pen­nies to draw luck to your money and busi­ness mat­ters. Re­fresh be­fore im­port­ant meet­ings, phone calls or as needed.’ (qtd. in  “10 Ways to Use Basil.” Moody Moons)

As we can see, basil had a con­tro­ver­sial past, ran­ging in sig­ni­fic­ance from love to hatred, but it still re­mains an im­port­ant herb, present in folk­lore with dif­fer­ent mean­ings and in lit­er­at­ure as a sign of love.

Works Cited

“10 Ways to Use Basil in Witch­craft.” Moody Moons, May 22, 2018. https://​moody​moons​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​2​2​/​1​0​-​m​a​g​i​c​a​l​-​w​a​y​s​-​t​o​-​u​s​e​-​b​a​s​i​l​-​i​n​-​w​i​t​c​h​craft/. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019.

“Basil.” Herbal En­cyc­lo­pe­dia, Com­mon Medi­cinal Herbs For Nat­ural Health. 2019. https://​www​.clover​leaf​farm​herbs​.com/​basil/. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019.

“Lav­ender – Part 2.” Our Herb Garden. 2019. http://​www​.ourherbgarden​.com/​h​e​r​b​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​/​l​a​v​e​n​d​e​r​-​p​a​r​t​2.html. Ac­cessed 29 May, 2019.

“Lav­ender.” Our Herb Garden. 2019. http://​www​.ourherbgarden​.com/​h​e​r​b​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​/​t​h​y​m​e.html. Ac­cessed 29 May, 2019.

“Red­fox and Aske­lad­den”. Nor­we­gian Folk­tales. Pos­ted by Si­mon Roy Hughes, May 1, 2017. https://​nor​we​gi​an​folk​tales​.blog​spot​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​5​/​r​e​d​f​o​x​-​a​n​d​-​a​s​k​e​l​a​d​d​e​n.html. Ac­cessed 28 May 2019.

“Thyme Travel: His­tory of Za’atar.” Za­’atar. https://​www​.zandzdc​.com/​t​h​y​m​e​-​travel. Ac­cessed 28 May, 2019.

“Thyme.” Our Herb Garden. 2019. http://​www​.ourherbgarden​.com/​h​e​r​b​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​/​t​h​y​m​e.html. Ac­cessed 28 May, 2019.

de Cer­vantes, Miguel. Don Quix­ote. Trans­lated by John Ormsby, pp. 845. http://​pink​mon​key​.com/​d​l​/​l​i​b​r​a​r​y​1​/​b​o​o​k​0​5​30.pdf. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019. [Ori­gin­ally pub­lished: 1605]

Holt, Lauren. “Basil: Herbal Lore and Le­gends”, Mother Earth Liv­ing.  July 12. 2010. https://​www​.mothere​arth​liv​ing​.com/​n​a​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​/​b​a​s​i​l​-​h​e​r​b​a​l​-​l​o​r​e​-​a​n​d​-​l​egends). Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019.

Keats, John. “Isa­bella, Or the Pot of Basil.”  [an­not­ated]. Genius. 2019.https://​genius​.com/​J​o​h​n​-​k​e​a​t​s​-​i​s​a​b​e​l​l​a​-​o​r​-​t​h​e​-​p​o​t​-​o​f​-​b​a​s​i​l​-​a​n​n​otated. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019. [Ori­gin­ally pub­lished: 1820]

Keeler, Kathy. “Plant Story–Thyme and Its Folk­lore.” A Wan­der­ing Bot­an­ist. July 31, 2016. http://​kh​keeler​.blog​spot​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​0​7​/​p​l​a​n​t​-​s​t​o​r​y​-​t​h​y​m​e​-​a​n​d​-​i​t​s​-​f​o​l​k​l​o​r​e.html. Ac­cessed 28 May, 2019.

Mil­ner, Conan. “Basil: Herb of Scor­pi­ons, Doc­tors, and Kings.” The Epoch Times. Au­gust 16, 2015. https://​www​.thee​poch​times​.com/​b​a​s​i​l​-​h​e​r​b​-​o​f​-​s​c​o​r​p​i​o​n​s​-​d​o​c​t​o​r​s​-​a​n​d​-​k​i​n​g​s​_​1​7​1​0​7​1​9.html. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019.

Shakespeare, Wil­liam. “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream.” Ed­ited by K. Dreighton, London/New York,  1891. https://​archive​.org/​d​e​t​a​i​l​s​/​s​h​a​k​e​s​p​e​a​r​e​a​m​i​d​0​0​d​r​e​i​g​o​o​g​/​p​age/n7. Ac­cessed 28 May, 2019. [Ori­gin­ally pub­lished: 1600]

Shakespeare, Wil­liam. Win­ter’s Tale. The Com­plete Works of Wil­liam Shakespeare. 2019.http://​shakespeare​.mit​.edu/​w​i​n​t​e​r​s​_​t​a​l​e​/​f​u​l​l.html . Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019. [Ori­gin­ally pub­lished: 1623]

Tennyson, Al­fred Lord. “Ode to Memory”. All Po­etry. 2019. https://​all​po​etry​.com/​O​d​e​-​t​o​-​Memory. Ac­cessed 4 June, 2019. [Ori­gin­ally pub­lished: 1623]

Dania Ber­inde