MEDICINAL PLANTS in Folk Tradition

(Darren Dugan) #1

  1. Maloney

  2. Newman & Newman, 186
    2a. Cockayne 1864–6; Grattan &
    Singer 1952

  3. Johnson 1862

  4. Williams MS

  5. Williams MS

  6. ‘E.C.’

  7. Hatfield MS

  8. Beith

  9. Hatfield MS

  10. Porter 1974, 47

  11. Williams MS

  12. IFC S 925: 6

  13. IFC S 897: 217

  14. IFC S 903: 624

  15. IFC S 338: 223

  16. IFC S 572: 70

  17. IFC S 903: 624

  18. IFC S 898: 82, 85

  19. IFC S 925: 6

  20. Williams MS

  21. Williams MS

  22. Lafont, 66;PLNN,no. 61 (1999),
    289
    23.Phytologist,n.s. 4 (1860), 167

  23. Fargher

  24. Roeder

  25. Roeder

  26. Roeder

  27. Moore 1898

  28. Roeder

  29. McGlinchey, 83

  30. MacCulloch, 90

  31. Pratt 1850–7

  32. Vickery MSS

  33. Taylor 1929, 119

  34. Hatfield MS

  35. Beith

  36. Johnson 1862

  37. Salter

  38. McClafferty

  39. IFC S 655: 265

  40. IFC S 268: 118


edly the only one with blossoms emitting a powerful odour of rotting flesh.^267
Distinguishing between the species, however, has probably always been a feat
confined to botanists—in folk culture all hawthorns were doubtless regarded
as belonging to a single entity.
Compared with the tree’s prominence in folk beliefs its role in folk med-
icine appears to have been but slight. Both the flowers and the berries have
enjoyed a reputation as a heart tonic in Devon^268 and the Isle of Man,^269 while
in the Highlands^270 hawthorn tea has been drunk as a ‘balancer’ for either
high or low blood pressure. In the Isle of Man^271 and the Highlands,^272 too,
the plant has provided a remedy for sore throats. In Derbyshire an infusion
of the leaves served to extract thorns and splinters^273 and in East Anglia a
decoction of them substituted for those of raspberries (Rubus idaeus) to ease
labour in childbirth.^274
The sole Irish records picked up are both from Leitrim: as a toothache
cure^275 (involving steeping the bark in black tea and holding the liquid in the
mouth for a few minutes) and as an ingredient in a remedy for burns.^276


Notes


156 Crataegus

Free download pdf