decoction of the plant. A yet further approach is to eat the boiled leaves: to
cleanse the system and improve the complexion in Northumberland^87 and,
mixed with those of comfrey (Symphytum officinale), as a tonic and a treat-
ment for diabetes in Liverpool.^88
Though Ireland stands so sharply apart from Britain in that compara-
tively enormous use, especially in the border counties, of chickweed poultices
for treating swellings and inflammation, a wide variety of subsidiary appli-
cations has occurred in both countries, some of them the same ones and
employed to a similar extent. Seemingly special to Ireland, though, has been
the treating of six afflictions not found mentioned in the records from Brit-
ain: sores (Louth,^89 Kildare,^90 Galway,^91 Kilkenny^92 ), coughs and sore throats
(Mayo,^93 the Aran Islands^94 and, mixed with elecampane, Limerick^95 ), cuts
(Offaly,^96 Tipperary^97 ), jaundice (Galway^98 ), burns (Donegal^99 ) and colic
(Cork^100 ).
Stellaria holostea Linnaeus
greater stitchwort
Europe, south-western Asia, North Africa; introduced into North
America, New Zealand
Stellaria holostea has traditionally had the reputation of relieving stitches and
other muscular pains, whence the vernacular name. As recently as the 1930s,
children in Somerset chewed the flowers for that purpose.^101 Under a Welsh
name translating as ‘herb for shingles’ it is still in use in Caernarvonshire for
that in a mixture with wood sage and navelwort.^102 But whether tùrsairean,
a herb valued in the Highlands for a swollen breast, has correctly been iden-
tified as ‘stitchwort’^103 must be considered doubtful, as that is an ailment for
which chickweed (S. media) has pre-eminently been used.
In Ireland the same chewing of the flowers for stitches has been noted, and
in the south of that country it has also been boiled down with sugar candy as
aremedy for whooping cough under a name recorded asthang-a-naun.^104
Spergula arvensis Linnaeus
corn spurrey
almost cosmopolitan weed
The only certain record ofSpergula arvensis in folk medicine is John Parkin-
son’s generalised 1640 statement: ‘the country people in divers places say that
they have had good experience’ of speedily healing a cut by bruising the plant
and then laying it on.^105 It is odd that there have been no later reports by
folklorists of this use. One of the plant’s vernacular names in Ulster is
92 Stellaria media