Meadowsweet

 Meadowsweet was also once known as Queen of the Meadow, Lady of the Meadow, Bridewort or Hayriff and wasn't a plant I was familiar with until moving  to Clay Cottage in Mid-Suffolk. Either I'd never noticed it or it just didn't feature much on the verges and ditch edges in the very dry Suffolk Coastal area where we lived at the smallholding.

I spotted some growing  in a shady ditch edge just along the road from the bungalow and brought a little home to see if it 'sweetened' the living room. Can't say I noticed it particularly - perhaps I need to have gathered much more.

It was one of the most sacred herbs of the Druids and has also been found among cremated remains of Bronze Age people.  The reason for it's name of Meadowsweet when it doesn't grow in meadows is it was often used to flavour mead. It was used as a strewing herb too.

The seventeenth century herbalist, Gerarde also knew of it

For the smell thereof makes the heart merrie, 

delighting the senses, and neither does it cause headaches, 

or loathsome to meat, as some sweet smelling herbs do.

In folklore a drink made from meadowsweet was once considered to be a love potion and in folk medicine it was used to make remedies for headaches, coughs and sore throats. It contains some salicylic acid - the basis for aspirin (like the more well known willow)

And of course there is an illustration  and song of the Meadowsweet Flower Fairy from Cecily Mary Barker's books of the 1920s.

The Song of the Queen of The Meadow Fairy

Queen of the Meadow

where small streams are flowing,

What is your kingdom

and whom do you rule

"Mine are the places

where wet grass is growing,

Mine are the people

of marshland and pool.

Kingfisher-courtiers,

swift-flashing, beautiful,

Dragonflies, minnows

are mine one and all;

Little frog-servants who

wait around me, dutiful,

Hop on my errands

and come when I call".

Gentle Queen Meadowsweet

served with such loyalty,

Have you no crown then,

no jewels to wear?

"Nothing I need

for a sign of my royalty,

Nothing at all 

but my own fluffy hair!"

Back Tomorrow

Sue