Personal Blogs

The wind dropped and the cat and I

Ran in the cornfield.

Not ripe yet though.

My transliteration of an Anglo-Saxon riddle.

Green and growing.

Tugged suddenly from bed.

Making her cry on the chopping board.

Pleasing her when cooked.

What am I?

I found this rather showy (indeed gallant) flower on a roadside near where I live.

It is viper's bugloss.

The bugloss part comes from its rough stem and leaves - bugloss means ox-tongue from Greek bous + glossa. The viper component is because the plant was once thought to be sovereign against snakebite.

Culpeper's Herbal of 1653 says

"It is an especial remedy against the biting of the Viper, and all other venomous beasts, or serpents."

Why did people believe this? Had it been found, by accidental trial and error that the plant worked against snakebite and so its use for this purpose became part of local tradition? Does in fact save people from death by snakebite?

No, the reason seems to come from the Doctrine of Signatures. According to this concept, which goes back to antiquity, plants with medicinal uses bore signs that indicated what they were good for.

So for example the leaves of lungwort were thought to look like diseased lung tissue, showing that it would be good for lung ailments.

This notion seems odd to modern thought, but it's based on a belief in providence: these plants had been put there by a creator, or perhaps just by nature, but for a purpose - to help humankind  - and so the plants should be labelled - as the products in a supermarket aisle should be. For me the hardest bit is imagining that the world was created solely for us. That seems so unlikely and species-centered. But we are using modern thought and it's fairly easy to at least empathize with a different mindset.

So following the DOS, the stems of viper's bugloss are speckled, something considered characteristic of snakes (think of the Sherlock Holmes' tale The Speckled Band) and so the herb is marked as a snakebite remedy.

Culpeper offers several other uses for viper's bugloss, for example as a cheery pick-me-up.

"There is a syrup made hereof very effectual for the comforting the heart, and expelling sadness and melancholy."

I could do with some of that but I'll wait for proper testing!

When I went to the dentists they told me the real name for plaque is "calculus".

'Oh, I said brightly, "that's the Latin for 'pebble'". They seemed unimpressed by my erudition.

It seems that plaque is not necessarily a disease of modern living though, and it has been found on 50,000 year old Neandertal teeth. So it's persistent stuff.

Traces of plants were found in the plaque. Read more here or see a gruesome image (plus some good information from a volunteer science writer) here.

Other primates also suffer.

Beetle you're a neon sign.

Why show off so much?

Spring happiness. 

I'd like to die

In a forest at daybreak.

But I don't want to be cold.

So please give me a blanket.

Issa wrote many verses about cats. Here's one I like, a blog post from 1815, as you might consider it. His diary was like a kind of blog.

The kitten catches one
now and then...
fallen leaves.

See here for more,

More on birds

In English some common birds seem to have first names. Jenny Wren for example. Or Tom Tit.

In times past there were others. Some have become part of the modern name for the bird.

Jack Daw = Jackdaw

Mag Pie = Magpie

Some have replaced the original.

Robin = Robin Redbreast

Some survive amongst people interested in wildfowl.

Jack Snipe (I heard my father use this)

Some are archaic but once common.

Phillip Sparrow

Some may have been contrived in the early 19c. We can't tell.

Ralph Raven

And what's a parrot called?

There's some linguistic archeology here [1], with a few more examples. (Don't forget Dicky = Richard!)

Poet Script

Skelton [2] is a poet I have stubbornly tried to like for decades - and he from centuries back stubbornly tried not to be liked. See what you think of Phillip Sparrow.

[1] Archaeologia: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 19.

[2] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174438

Daisy

I feel tired now.

You've already closed, bless you.

Discussing the Shakespeare sonnet "That time of year" naturally made me think about the dawn chorus (of birds) and that led me on to something I'd forgotten about, the evening chorus (of fishes).

Fish can vocalize and on some coral reefs vast numbers of certain species "sing" at the same time of day. It's usually near nighttime and forms an underwater evening chorus. It may be related to feeding or reproduction, depending on the species.

Birds (and humans) sing according to the time of day (and year) but the singing behavior of some fishes is also affected by the phase of the moon.

More information is here.

Isn't that surprising? I wish I had been able to find a sound clip of fish singing but sadly not.

Thinking and loving are not different.

When we look up we see a falling star.

Should a verse be sweet? Or sour?

Hot or cold?

Today's food for thought.