cjonthehudson
flotsam, not jetsam
This is a familiar sight where I live. Crabapple blossoms, scattered along sidewalks, collected by the breeze and piled up against steps and fenceposts, floating in puddles after a rain shower. Crabapple trees are popular here because they’re pretty. People love them.
But hardly anybody knows the crabapple’s secret. The fruit of the crabapple is one of the ingredients of an old pagan cure for poison and infection: the Nine Herbs Charm. That may sound like something out of a Kill Bill movie, but it was used by ancient healers, who remembered the ingredients by reciting a poem. Here’s the relevant section:
A snake came crawling, it bit a man.
Then Woden took nine glory-twigs,
Smote the serpent so that it flew into nine parts.
There apple brought this pass against poison,
That she nevermore would enter her house.
The charm was included in Bald’s Leechbook, a 9th century medical manuscript. And if the Nine Herbs Charm sounds ridiculous to you, it’s worth noting that another of the Leechbook’s charms (it involved garlic and the bile from a cow’s stomach) was used in clinical tests last year to determine its effectiveness against MRSA.
Keep that in mind when you sweep up these blossoms. You’re not just tidying your sidewalk; you’re tidying up after Wōden. So do a good job.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
