into a pudding and eaten to cure ‘giddyness of the head’.^70 The flowers,
indeed, feature in the folk medicine records only exceptionally, the sole other
instance traced being an Isle of Man one.^71 There they have been made into
a soothing syrup, which is also sedative and mildly laxative.
The most widespread folk application of violets has been for cancerous
tumours, either on their own or in combination with other herbs, either
externally or internally, either by crushing the fresh leaves and laying them on
as a poultice or eating them or drinking an infusion. That this is recorded
predominantly from southern England (Somerset,^72 Dorset,^73 Kent,^74 Glou-
cestershire,^75 Oxfordshire,^76 Norfolk^77 ) and otherwise in Britain only from
Wales (unlocalised^78 ) could be indicative of a borrowing from the learned
tradition; on the other hand, that distribution does coincide suggestively with
the part of Britain in which sweet violet is most plentiful as a presumed
native, which could equally be evidence of a usage that is autochthonous. In
two of these same counties (Oxfordshire,^79 Norfolk^80 ) a poultice of the leaves
has also been valued for treating an ulcer. The plants’ astringency has led to
their being applied to skin problems and as a beauty lotion in the Highlands^81
and presumably explains their use on stings, as a counter-irritant, in Dorset.^82
Records from Ireland are markedly more restricted. The use for tumours
is known there also (Westmeath,^83 Tipperary^84 ); otherwise a poultice of the
leaves for boils in Meath^85 and a decoction of them for ‘a pain in the head’ in
Limerick^86 are the sole remedies that have been noted.
The one folk record that could credibly refer to the common dog-violet,
Viola rivinianaReichenbach, rather than to the sweet violet, is the one brought
back by Martin Martin from his visit to Skye in 1695: boiled in whey, it made
a‘refreshing drink for such as are ill of fevers’ under the namedail-chuach.^87
Viola tricolor Linnaeus
wild pansy, heart’s-ease
Europe, parts of Asia; introduced into North America, North Africa,
New Zealand
(Name ambiguity suspected) The name heart’s-ease was generally applied
in Ireland to self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)^88 and all records almost certainly
apply to that. A claim in Limerick^89 that ‘wild pansies’ produced a salve used
for cuts and deeper wounds, an application otherwise unrecorded in folk
medicine for any Viola species, probably arose from confusion with self-heal,
too: that is a purpose for which that herb was particularly widely used.
112 Viola odorata