Daisies 297over the commoner plant because its less bitter taste gave it more ‘consumer
appeal’.^199 Once collected along the Sussex coast^200 on a commercial scale,
the name ‘savin’, by which some people knew it, suggests that, by borrowing
that from juniper, the ‘deleterious purposes too generally known’ for which
that collecting was said to take place^201 may have been as an abortifacient at
least in part. In the south of Scotland, though, it was to treat fevers and con-
sumption that the peasants apparently primarily favoured it: Lanarkshire
and Galloway folk tales tell of its being recommended by mermaids,^202 as if to
underline that only the maritime plant would do. Another use, reported from
Essex, was to rub one’s forehead with a handful of it to cure a headache.^203
Artemisia vulgaris Linnaeus
mugwort, muggons
northern temperate zone
A common component of the tundra vegetation that clothed the British Isles
at the termination of the Ice Age,Artemisia vulgaris has lingered on in other
parts of northern Europe as a member of the natural vegetation of the drift
lines at or above the level of high-water spring tides (like tansy). In Britain
and Ireland, however, it appears in modern times to have been confined
exclusively to man-made habitats, especially dry waste ground, on which it is
common throughout the lowlands. Like other nitrophiles, it may have
acquired this weed status even as early as Mesolithic times and is likely to
have been available for exploitation for several millennia at least. The medico-
magical potency with which this visually unprepossessing plant has been
credited through much of Eurasia and the strikingly similar beliefs associated
with it in different regions of that landmass indeed suggest that it may be
one of the oldest herbs known to mankind.^204 Sacred to thunder gods, its
power to ward off evil influences was believed to be greatest on Midsummer
Eve, the time of year when light and heat were rated their most intense. In that
role it has rivalled, and probably preceded, St John’s-wort and attained a par-
ticularly exalted status in the Isle of Man, where the custom was revived c.
1924 of wearing a sprig of it on Tynwald Day, when the island’s ancient par-
liament is traditionally convened for an open-air proclamation of each year’s
new laws.
Why, though, did it attract such an extraordinarily widespread and tena-
cious faith in its efficacy? It is only slightly aromatic and its flowers are incon-
spicuous. It is, however, narcotic and was probably once a favourite divina-
tory,a use which is known to have persisted into more recent times in East