Leopard's Bane/ Guldblomme

Arnica montana










The Leopard's Bane has got many names, like Cure all , Fallherb, Golden-fleece, Lambskin , Mountain daisy, Mountain Tobacco, Sneezewort, Tumblers  and Wolf's Bane. It is also called by the Latin name Arnica. In Denmark is it known as Guldblomme, Volverlej and Arnica. 

The Arnica is an about 50 cm tall herbaceous plant with flowers of a warm golden yellow colour in May and June. The plant has a strong aromatic scent. The genuine Arnica is often found growing wild in moors and upon dry hills. It contains several more etheric oils than the garden species and its scent is more aromatic.

Arnica montana is endemic to Europe, from southern Iberia to southern Scandinavia and the Carpathians. It is absent from the British Isles and the Italian and Balkan Peninsulas. Arnica montana grows in nutrient-poor silicaceous meadows up to nearly 3,000 metres (9,800 ft). It is rare overall, but may be locally abundant. It is becoming rarer, particularly in the north of its distribution, largely due to increasingly intensive agriculture. In more upland regions, it may also be found on nutrient-poor moors and heaths.The plant origins from Asia, North America and the Alps. It is listed in the Alps, in Germany and Denmark.  The plant is in decline in Denmark, it is relatively common in Jutland, but rare on the islands.


Folk Medicine:
In the 1600s was the plant entered into the pharmacopoeia and recommended by physicians in fevers, epilepsy, paralysis and rheumatism. If someone suffered from rheumatism, broncitis or heart-sclerosis they could drink a tea from flowers, leaves and roots. A thinned essence from the plant was dabbed upon blue bruises and sprains, and a thinned essence was used  as a gargling-water in inflammation of the mouth and in parodontal disease. The plant has an old reputation as a means of fetal expulsion but is fatal if consumed in large amounts.

Torup, Mid Jutland . Here was the Arnica.

Medicine Today:
Today is the plant used in ointments upon pulled muscles and sore blue bruises. See: Arnica montana  

Arnica-tinctur has been sold from the pharmacy to treat spavin in heifers.

Clinical Tests:
The juice from the plant irritates the skin. Big doses of the plant-content has proved a poisonous effect on heart and circulation in clinical tests with rabbits.
  
Superstition:
If the plant is drunk in wine it strengthens love and promotes love-making. People had an ancient belief that the plant worked as a means to fertility. In Jutland they fed the cow with the flowers shortly before it was covered by the bull. In Himmerland gave the young guy an Arnica to his chosen girl. If she accepted it, she was bound.











Others:
Arnica was once used in beer-brewing. The spicy-scented flowers were an ingredience in Benedictine-liqueur. In Jutland was the dried plant used as a snuff -  and French shepherds used the leaves for tobacco.

Goethe used Arnica to easen pain in heart attacks.


The Arnica is especially known in Denmark as a kloster-herb by the ancient name Volverlej. 

photo Torup, Mid Jutland 25 June 2011: grethe bachmann

The Water Dog and the Little Sissy....

This is a real water dog, but what about the little one? He won't go down to the water no matter how much he's being drawn. Stay off my neck!



I hate water! I don't care how much "Goldie" shows me how to do it!

She runs into the water like a freak.

I won't do it. I might get wet.

If I hadn't got that silly leash on I would run away and find home myself!

But I can hide behind Mum and Dad. I wish they would understand. I'm not a sissy. I can do other things.

Mum tells me not to worry. We are going home now.

Oh Goldie is so wet and Mum tells her to behave. Ha! 
















photo Horsens fjord : grethe bachmann

Sculpture by the Sea

Aarhus June 2011
A Taste of Denmark

Children on their way to the exhibition.

Childrens' Workshop

Ferreiro Badra, Spain - Kinetic Interference

The Glue Society, Australia - I wish you hadn't asked.

Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, Australia, "Counter"

The exhibition in Aarhus, Sculpture by the Sea, was inspired by an exhibition at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, which the Danish crownprince Frederik and crownprincess Mary saw in 2000. They were fascinated by this spectacular exhibition and became source of inspiration for the local exhibition upon the beach in Aarhus, which was shown the first time in 2009. They are now the patrons of Sculpture of the Sea in 2011. 

In the first part of the exhibition is a special arrangement for the children with workshops for both children and families - and the first little stretch with children-friendly sculptures.  An old tug boat from Aarhus Harbour was re-built into a wheel-boat. Upon the boat are several binoculars, and people can take a trip and look at the sculptures from the sea.                                                                                                                                                                                              

Hilde A. Danielsen , Norge, Upside Down II

Jørn Carlo Larsen, Danmark, Ombygning

Hugh Ramage , Australia - Dazzle Bathers, Harlequin , X-Man.

The beach in Århus runs in a long curve along the bay - and the stretch for the exhibition is about 3 km, which gives a perfect background for the various sculptures. Along the beach are exciting works by the artists. Upon the sand in the water. Up in trees. In the last part of the stretch runs a path up through the forest close to the sea where sculptures are placed in the forest. The artists come from all over the world. Some of the sculptures are for sale. Århus is now allowed to keep one of the sculptures - there is a voting which has not yet been closed. In the Helnan Marselis Hotel by the beach is an exhibition with small works of the artists. Those works are all for sale.

Phil Price, New Zealand - Nucleus.

Wheel-boat

Marianne Jørgensen, Danmark - Sky

Raquel Corona Justo, Mexico - Observando la Fantasia

Kent Karlsson, Sweden- Spectacle Agnostico

Tim Prentice, USA - Easel Windframe

Lunch time

A Sisyphos problem?

Sasha Reidt and Dominique Sutton  , Australia - Melt

Suzie Bleach and Andy Townsend, Australia - The adaptable Migrant.

Chen Weng Ling, China - Red Memory - Shy Boy.

Hannah Kidd, New Zealand - Bruno the cycling Bear.

Mehdi Yarmohammadi, Iran , AVISHAN Sculptor Group - The Bird. 

Andrew Rogers, Australia - From Optimism to Hope.

Ilan Sandler, Canada - Beach Chair.

Hannah Streefkerk, Holland - Jellyfishes

Michael Hischer, Germany - Wv282, Kinetic Sculpture

Marcus Tatton, Australia -Quantum Sequestion

Mum, my shoe fell off!

Children on the beach. 

Toshio Iezumi, Japan - M.110401

Kent Karlsson, Sweden - Spectacle Agnostico

Elderly people are also here, this  walk is IN!

Bjørn Godwin, Australia - Nothing to see here, keep moving along...,

It helps to enlarge the photos. PS: It rains inside the house where they come out wearing yellow raincoats.

photo Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus 28. June 2011: grethe bachmann

Summer in the City

Lovely sunny summer days. The city is filled with people in cafés both outside and inside. Århus is a so-called University-town and is marked by the young students from the university.




The river through Århus was for a long period running unseen under asphalt roads, but it has now been re-sited  and runs free like about 70 years ago. This has given a place in the middle of the town where people can breathe freely - and there are now many good and well-visited cafés and restaurants along the water. 

Just to mention the Vikings again! - then these children are sitting at a place named Immervad, which was a ford in the Viking period.

photo Århus 28. June 2011: grethe bachmann