Gathering old wives tales

I can never think of basil without hearing Fawlty Towers - “Basil!”

 

My mum used to say never eat the growing eyes on the potato, it will grow inside you.

Never go out on Halloween night because the witches come out.

 

my mom was paranoid about this one lone foxglove that would always sprout up in our back garden, she would freak out when she saw it , saying it was deadly. No matter what she did to try and kill it off, up it came, every single year l can remember lol.
Apparently though, iv read old cottagers liked foxgloves in their gardens because they believed it was good for the soil, as they believed it healed sickly plants.

 

Interestingly, I have just been reading an article in the RHS The Garden, about fungi, the author comments that many people are overly concerned about poisonous fungi, whereas every part of the Foxglove, even the Pollen, is poisonous.

 

One of my tortoises used to eat the leaves of Foxgloves with no ill effects. I do like them ( to look at rather than eat )

 

If your mom was paranoid about the foxglove she could have just pulled it up. It's not exactly difficult. End of story. The one that kept coming back was probably just a newbie grown from a seed of the original plant.

 

even the most poisonous things around could be tried in tiny tiny doses without life threatening danger, apart from yew i think. injury is a different matter. probably how our ancestors did it. deathcaps, destroying angels, lilac fibrecaps, deadly nightshade, digitalis, the hemlocks and yew are all survivable if a tiny dose is taken though it could cause liver damage. the danger is in confusing it for something edible. each person would be different too


very few things are dangerous to touch in the uk. giant hogweed sap and the hemlocks can burn badly and hurt for many years, the others dont do much unless you then put your hands in your eyes or mouth. some people have very bad reactions to nettles. the mushrooms are all safe to touch provided you wash your hands later.

i believe with deathcaps about half a medium mushroom will kill an adult man, deadly nightshade takes several berries eaten. yew only 3 chewed seeds can kill you but I know someone who says they ate unchewed ones as a kid many times accidentally and were fine yew is possibly the worst in the uk but it very rarely kills anyone because nobody is eating random tree leaves

deadly nightshade AKA atropa bella-donna gets its name meaning beautiful lady because women would squeeze the juice into their eyes to dilute their pupils and make their eyes look larger i dont recommend it! purified atropine is still used today as an eye medicine.

i dont think its unreasonable to be afraid of these things as the danger is very real, but people can also be too cautious. if you have kids or pets around its a different story.

 

The principle of Paracelsus was "The dose makes the poison"

I would say be cautious rather than afraid; the only thing I'm particularly cautious about are the flowering Acontiums always wash hands after working with them, so an end of session job.
Too many people overreact when they hear a plant is poisonous.

 

Old cottagers song..

' when King Arthur first did reign
he rul-ed like a king
he bought three sacks of barley meal
to make a plum pud-ding

the pudding it was made
and duly stuffed with plums
and lumps of suet put in it
as big as my two thumps

the king and queen sat down to it
and all the lords beside
and what that couldn't be eat that night
the queen next morning fried

 

That reminds me of my dad who, when presented with one of my mother’s latest culinary creations and finding it not to his taste would try a bit, put his cutlery down and after a short while say “I'll have it for my breakfast”.

“I’ll have it for my breakfast” became a family saying when one wanted to get out of doing something tiresome or unpleasant.

 

in medieval times, borage was thought to provide courage. The crusaders were said to drink infusions of borage leaves mixed with wine before heading into battle.

my book doesnt say what the benefit of the wine did lol

 

folklore says that if marjoram and wild thyme are laid near milk in dairy, they will prevent it being turned by thunder.

 

this got me thinking...basil is the herb of love..so was it the Roman ladies who sown the seed (in hopefulness) and then the Roman men who were convinced of its 'contrariness' trod all over it with curses, calling on the gods to make sure it didnt florishes? lol

 

Hi

Intresting thread

one my mum used to say was “don’t look at the moon through glass”

 

l remember as a child of 5 yrs old ( many moons ago) we had a beautiful long row of trees full of yellow blossoms that lined our path to infant school Then one day..all of them were chopped down :( when l asked mom why, she said some children had eaten the 'seeds' from them and became very ill. l later learnt the tree's were Laburumns