erick^245 and—combined with primroses, a unique use of those for this pur-
pose—Cork.^246 With two exceptions the other uses traced for the plant in
the records find no reflection in the British ones: to give goodness to the
blood in Co. Dublin^247 and to cure dropsy in Limerick^248 and palsy in Lim-
erick^249 and Wexford^250 (so popular for that in the last as to have locally
acquired the name palsywort).
An ointment made in Wicklow^251 for wrinkles and spots, however, sounds
toolike the British cosmetic to be claimed as purely Irish, while if ‘strengthen-
ing the senses’ embraced curing deafness, then that is the other exception. But
whereas in South Wales the senses were strengthened simply by drinking
cowslip tea or wine, the remedy for deafness recorded from several parts of
Ireland was both different and elaborate. Best known from a classic description
byOscar Wilde’s mother,^252 this required bruising the flowers, leaves and roots,
pressing them in a cloth, adding honey to the liquid extracted and then putting
afew drops of that into the nostrils as well as the ears while the patient lay
prone. After a while the patient turned face upwards, bearing away ‘whatever
obstructives lay on the brain’. A later record of a deafness remedy from Mayo^253
repeats Lady Wilde’s description so faithfully as to suggest a straight parroting
of that, but another from Cork^254 is more convincingly independent.
Lysimachia nemorum Linnaeus
yellow pimpernel
western and central Europe, Caucasus
The flowers ofLysimachia nemorum have been boiled in Cavan as a cure for
gallstones.^255 Otherwise the only record is from an untrustworthy source
that, allegedly in Ireland somewhere,the plant has been used in conjunction
with tormentil (Potentilla erecta) as a hypnotic for insomnia.^256 It may well be
that it shares with cowslips (Primula veris) a soporific effect.
Lysimachia vulgaris Linnaeus
yellow loosestrife
temperate Eurasia; introduced into North America, Australasia
(Folk credentials questionable) A herb recommended by ‘the Irish Aescu-
lapius’, the druid Diancecht (fl. 487 B.C.), for poulticing a sore throat has been
identified, on unknown grounds, as ‘yellow baywort’,^257 a name which more
probably belongs to Lysimachia vulgaris than any other. Though well enough
distributed in both Britain and Ireland to be a likely plant to have had some
place in folk medicine, it clearly cannot be admitted as a member on such
evidence.
126 Primula veris