Re: Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey


Alan Crozier wrote:
"celia" <c_a_blay@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1143559296.656288.75820@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Plant Name Translations

A Herb with Medical Properties

After all the medical uses for the other plants
the two chosen as the only entries in this category
are strange indeed.

First we have 'Caulic' which can just be translated
as 'medicine' but if it has to be a plant then B&T
and every other dictionary gives the Latin name
Caulis magudaris (help, Alan I need a translation)
This is all very well but Google the words and all
that comes up is entries in Old English dictionaries.

That might look like a scientific (Latin) name, but in B&T there's actually a comma between
the two words.The OE word is used to gloss both Latin 'caulis' and Greek 'magudaris'. Caulis
is easy, it means cabbage. 'Magudaris' is harder. In the glosses it seems to be synonymous
with 'caulis', but in Greek dictionaries 'magydaris' is defined as silphion, a plant in the
parsley family, and as another plant, distinct from silphion, Prangos ferulacea. (To confuse
you even more, Magydaris is now used as a scientific name for some other genus - Peter will
know about that.)

Old High German 'kol' is likewise used to gloss both these classical words.

The alternative is that it is a variation on 'Cawel'
(A word I have spent many a fruitless hour
wrestling with) Officially Cawel = Colewort which
is an old word for Kale or Cabbage, hardly worth
a special entry as a marvellous herb.
A 'Cawel Dene' occurs in charters for my village.
It is certainly a simplified spelling of a more complex
name that is found in numerous versions elsewhere.
The ground at 'Cawel Dene', later known as
Caldon Common is almost pure chalk and not a place
where any member of the cabbage family would flourish.
Any ideas on 'Caulic' ?

Nope

The only other entry in this category is 'Mandragora'
= Mandrake. Grethe explores the mythology of the
Mandrake in the Hand of Glory thread and identifies it
with the mysterious 'Springwort' This is a great bit
of detective work and very interesting in its mythological
ramifications. A tale of the Springwort (Mandrake)
can be found in a link in the same thread.


Alan

Thanks Alan, despite my mother telling me
to eat my greens as it would do me good cabbage
doesn't seem to have any reputation as a wonder drug.
Somehow it just doesn't feel in the same league as
mandrake. I admire your skills with languages.
Here's an alternative interpretation.
Cawel/ Caulic = Colewort but Colewort is a name
given to another plant as well as Cabbage/Kale
and that plant is the Wood Avens, Herb Bennet,
from Herba benedicta, known as 'the blessed herb'
because of its power to ward off evil spirits.
"Where the root is in the house Satan can do nothing
and flies from it wherefore it is blessed before all other herbs,
and if a man carries the root about him no venemous
beast can harm him."
Ortus Sanitatis 1491

Herb Bennet does grow in Cawel Dene.
The trifoil leaf symbolised the Trinity and the five
petals the wounds of Christ.
We've missed the boat to try out its powers as the
root must be harvested on March 25th.

Celia

.

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