ing an infusion was normally deemed sufficient, the Pitt Rivers Museum in
Oxford has in its collections sprigs of the plant which a local woman was
found in 1914 wearing in her boots for nine days, in the belief that as the feet
became hot the ‘savin’ soaks through the stockings into the feet and thence
into the bloodstream^87 —a practice analogous to the wearing ofUrtica dioica
(nettle) in socks as a male contraceptive.^88 Giving birth ‘under the savin tree’
was once a euphemism in Lothian for an abortion or a miscarriage,^89 and
there are similar allusions in a number of both English and Scottish ballads.
That the records are all from England and Lowland Scotland may or may not
reflect reality; it seems probable, however, that use for this purpose in Ire-
land has always been rare or over wide areas even non-existent.
That juniper has had acknowledged value in folk medicine in other direc-
tions may have served to cloak its use for ‘improper purposes’. The berries, for
example, had a reputation as diuretic and caused the herb to be resorted to for
dropsy and kidney ailments, a use reported from Hampshire^90 and the High-
lands.^91 A liniment made from the berries or two or three drops of the oil
taken on a lump of sugar also served to ease rheumatism and backache in
Devon,^92 Somerset^93 and Norfolk,^94 its use for teething infants in the High-
lands^95 being perhaps of similar origin.
Another, certainly ancient use of juniper (for this was recommended by
Hippocrates) was as a fumigant. The green branches, and in some cases the
berries, too, were burnt to purify the air in sick-rooms or to prevent an infec-
tion from spreading, a practice recorded from as far apart as Devon^96 and
Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.^97 In Devon, people in contact with a conta-
gious disease are known to have chewed the berries as an extra precaution.^98
In common with other herbs held in especially high esteem, the plant has
also attracted a miscellany of apparently more restricted uses: for indiges-
tion in Somerset,^99 for skin disorders such as psoriasis in the Westmoreland
Pennines^100 and for epilepsy^101 and snakebites^102 in the Highlands.
In Ireland the juice of the berries has been a traditional diuretic,^103
brought to bear specifically on dropsy in Cavan.^104 In Donegal aconcoction
of them has also been favoured as a stimulant or cleanser of the system.^105
Andthe gathering of them in their white unripe state (caora aitinn), for bot-
tling in whiskey and keeping on hand for ‘ailments’, is even the subject of a
special tradition, reserved for the last Sunday in July, among children on Achill
Island and the neighbouring Corraun Peninsula, on the coast of Mayo.^106
66 Juniperus communis