helped but decline in use proportionately as a source of folk remedies. Relics
of that use that have been recorded there are the consumption of the astrin-
gent bark as a remedy for fevers^74 and, in the Badenoch district of Inverness-
shire, the making of a plaster for boils and sores from the resin mixed with
beeswax and hog’s lard.^75 Extensive pinewoods of considerably long standing,
even though probably all planted originally, are to be found in East Anglia,
and within living memory a child suffering from a polio-like illness was taken
to those in Norfolk to breathe in the fragrance, which was believed to have a
therapeutic effect.^76 A child is likewise on record as having been taken to the
coast in Wales in order to sniff ‘the pines’ there for an hour or two daily.^77
Pinus species have enjoyed a reputation as bronchial cleansants since Classi-
cal times, and these cases are presumably a distant echo of that—as has been
the use of the young shoots for a cough medicine, recorded from Essex.^78
Ireland shares only with Essex^79 evidence of the resin’s having been
employed also as a vulnerary: to stop a cut finger bleeding in Wicklow^80 and,
though with the introduced larch (Larix decidua Miller) apparently standing
in for a pine, in Limerick^81 too. Some part of the tree is known to have been
applied also in Galway for the mysterious fanmadh.^82
CUPRESSACEAE
Juniperus communis Linnaeus
juniper, savin
Arctic and northern temperate zone
In the guise of the drink distilled from the berries (though an infusion made
from the whole plant is an alternative that has had its followers), members of
the genus Juniperus have long enjoyed a reputation as abortifacients. This
use has been dubiously ascribed to the Doctrine of Signatures, on the argu-
ment that a plant so often conspicuously sterile itself must have been placed
on this earth for human beings to have the benefit of the special property
that that implied. Widely known as savin, a name which strictly speaking
belongs to a related species native to other parts of Europe,J. sabina Linnaeus
(which is more potent and toxic), the use ofJ. communis for this particular
purpose is doubtless as ancient as it has been widespread—though much
under-reported by folklorists. In Somerset^83 and Lincolnshire,^84 indeed, it is
only from suggestive vernacular names that have been employed for it that it
can be inferred that it has had some popularity there. In Norfolk^85 and Gallo-
way,^86 on the other hand, the evidence for that is more direct. Though drink-
Pteridophytes and Conifers 65