Common Purslane / Sommer Portulak

Portulaca oleracea



Common Purslane

Common purslane, also known as verdolaga, little hogweed, red root, or pursley and khorfe is an annual succulent in the family portulacaceae, which may reach 40 centimetres (16 in) in height. Approximately forty cultivars are currently grown. The plant was cultivated as a kitchen herb since antiquity. Purslane is very rich in C-vitamin and the important omega 3 fatty acids, which strengthen the immune Systeme. The plant is also diuretic. 

It has an extensive distribution throughout the Old World extending from North Africa and Southern Europe through the Middle East and the Iran, Indian Subcontinent to Malesia and Australasia. Scientists suggested that the plant was already eaten by Native Americans who spread its seeds. How it reached the New World is currently unknown. It is naturalised elsewhere, and in some regions is considered an introduced weed

Mostly prostrate stems and alternate leaves clustered at stem joints and ends. The yellow flowers have five regular parts and are up to 6 millimetres wide. Depending upon rainfall, the flowers appear at any time during the year. The flowers open singly at the center of the leaf cluster for only a few hours on sunny mornings. Seeds are formed in a tiny pod, which opens when the seeds are mature. Purslane has a taproot with fibrous secondary roots and is able to tolerate poor compacted soils and drought.

A common plant in parts of India, purslane is known as sanhti, punarva, paruppu keerai (Tamil), gangavalli(Telugu) or kulfa (Hindi) 

Australian aborigines use the seeds of purslane to make seedcakes.

Greeks, who call it andrakla or glystrida  use the leaves and the stems with feta cheese, tomato, onion, garlic, oregano and olive oil. They add it in salads, boil it, or add it to casseroled chicken.

In Turkey, besides being used in salads and in baked pastries, it is cooked as a vegetable similar to spinach, or is mixed with yogurt to form a tsatsiki variant.

Similarly, in Egypt, it is known as reglah  and cooked as a vegetable stew.

Called Bakleh in Syria and Lebanon, is eaten raw in a famous salad called fattoush, and cooked as a garniture in fatayeh (triangular salted pastries).

In Albania, known as burdullak, it also is used as a vegetable similar to spinach, mostly simmered and served in olive oil dressing, or mixed with other ingredients as a filling for dough layers of byrek.

In the south of Portugal (Alentejo), baldroegas are used as a soup ingredient.

In Pakistan, it is known as qulfa and is cooked as in stews along with lentils, similarly to spinach, or in a mixed green stew.

Known as Ma Chi Xian (pinyin: translates as "horse tooth amaranth") in traditional Chinese medicine Its leaves are used for insect or snake bites on the skin, boils, sores, pain from bee stings, bacillary dysentery, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, postpartum bleeding, and intestinal bleeding.

Use is contraindicated during pregnancy and for those with cold and weak digestion

Nutrition and chemicals of the plant read wikipedia

Denmark:
Common Purslane/ Sommer Portulak is an old kitchen herb which was known back from the 1500s. The fresh shots can be eaten raw in salads etc. The taste reminds about mangetout peas, but with a sour touch. In old garden books it was often classified as a spice herb. Both leaves and stalks can be cooked and be mixed into mashed potatoes, in soups and sauces. The leaves act as a smotthing. The plant is suitable for vinegar pickling and it  can also be caramelized when fried in an oven.



Folk Medicine:

Harpestræng ab. 1300s: the juice from the herb to drink or the herb to crush and put upon the stomach against fever; the crushed herb upon an aching tooth or sick eyes; the plant to take with salt and wine against indigestion; purslane was the part of an ointment for abscesses and wounds.

Henrik Smid 1546: the juice from the seeds and destilled water from the plant against stomach-, liver- and kindey diseases. The plant and the juice against cough, shortness of breath and gonorrhea.
Purslane attenuates the superfluous unchastity.
Herb or seeds crushed and mixed with barley flour upon forehead and temples against headache.
Juice or destilled water from the plant with rose oil rubbed upon the forehead give a restful sleep. 

Simon Paulli 1648: put the plant on left side of body against pains from malaria. 

1700s: at the pharmacy was sold a sirup from purslane seeds for childrens' stomach pain.

The seeds were written into the pharmacopoeia in 1772.

Kitchen:
In 1648 purslane /portulak grew in the Danish gardens, and the chefs used it in a salad. 
In 1800 purslane was used in soups, the chopped parts in kale soup.
The stalks were sugar candied like pumpkins, and vinegar pickled and used in a sharp sauce. 

 Superstition:
Purslane counteracts drunkenness.
If the plant hangs above the bed peope don't get bad dreams.


Livestock:
Purslane in the fodder provides greater milch production in cows.

Source of the Denmark-text: 
V.J.Brøndegaard: Dansk Etnobotanik 1978-80, Folk og Flora, Portulak/ Portulaca oleracea 



photo and image: wikipedia.

Flax/ Linseed (DK: Hør/ Hørfrø)

Asian Flax/photo Høvblege, Møn:gb

 Linum usitatissimum

var. humile = linseed (oliehør)
var. vulgare = flax (textile flax) 

Wild flax (wikipedia)

Linum catharticum, wild flax ( vild hør),  common in loamy and warm soil




















History and Folkore about Flax/Linen in Denmark 
(source: Brøndegaard, Folk og Flora, Dansk Etnobotanik) 

linseeds (wikipedia)

                                             
At the Danish island of Bornholm were in clay pots found prints of linseeds from Bronze Age. Finds of yarn and linen fabrics from the same period were probably imported wares. Linseed was probably cultivated at Bornholm in Bronze Age 800-400 BC as a nutrition. ( - eating the oilrich seeds evt. mixed with barley). From early Roman Iron Age are known several imprints of linseeds in claypots, mostly together with barley and burnt seeds.

Tollundman, Silkeborg Museum( photo SBN/GB)

Linseeds amounted a substantial part of the Tollund-Man's gastric contents. ( Iron age, ab. year 0.)

From the time before 1 BC are not known any finds of Danish cultivated flax. The textile flax must have arrived to Denmark from eastern Europe. Flax was in the 1200s used as a payment of medium of exchange. Already towards the end of the Middle Ages the cultivation had reached an extent. In 1312 taxes were paid from flax in Århus district. Not until ab. 1400 it seems that linen was of importance as a commercial product. The linen was in the Middle Ages used for towels, dishtowels, cloths, curtains, rugs (esp. a cover for horses), sacks and purses.

14th century, depicting linen, wikipedia

In 1506 the Jutland farmers objected to pay taxes of flax( flax was not corn) but the magistrate was against them. Provisions for the linseed production were found in many city laws. The linseed farm had to be securely fenced etc. Before and during the Absolutism the government tried with regulations to support and expand the breeding.

Flax, Open Air Museum in Brede, Zealand(wikipedia)

Chr. IV let fetch seeds from Riga for the Zealand and Scanic farmers and let hire measurers to control the linen trade and instruct the merchants in the market towns to have good seeds. In order to diminish the expensive import of linseeds (for soap) a regulation in 1687 decided that 1/4 of the city field had to be sowed with linseed and hemp or beets. Violation resulted in a fine. According to a regulation in 1741 it must be reported which city fields were suitable to be sown with linseed, hemp or tobacco.The regulations seemed not to have had much effect. In ab. year 1800 was not cultivated half of the country's consumption of linseed and hemp. In 1837 the city fields were sown with linseeds and nothing with hemp.


The government urged from 1748 people

Linen laid out for bleaching in field,( J.Th. Lundbye).

to take care with the treatment of linseed in order to produce a finer linen = just as fine as the imported linen. Several linen weavers were established and an import ban for foreign work. After 1780 were spinning mills all over the country. The production of linen yarn, linen and linseed oil was af the utmost importance ab. 1800,  but the farming was too small and the production often of a bad quality. It was still necessary to import significant amounts. About 1850 it was known that the Danish handicraft could not compete with the factory linen and the cotton fabric from abroad. The Danish domestic production had to be customs protected.


The farming of linseed had a big upturn during WWI an WWII.


Rules about sowing

The sower, van Gogh, Wikipedia

The farmer had to sow linseed on the 100th day of the year = 10 april. Then the growth would succeed best and avoid frost damage - or he might sow on the 1. of May -  or in the first half of May. The 16th of May was called "linseed day" or "Saras day". If the seeds were sown on a Saturday the wearer of the linen would get lice. The seeds had to be sown close to the farm so the seeds could hear the gate creak!

The sower had to creep while he was sowing the linseeds, women must not sow , they were only allowed to look -  or the sower had to roll up his pants high, and he had to walk on his toes or swing his legs as high as he wished the linen to grow, and keep his head high and throw the rest of a handful of seeds over a horse's head.


Superstition

Medieval woodcut, wikipedia

The witches had no power over the linseed, but they were always  conspiring to destroy it - as a protection against them a harrow with teeth upwards had to be placed close to the linen field.
If  a May branch was put in a flax field on Midsummer's day the trolls would stay away.

A flax field was a very pretty sight when it was blooming like a big light blue carpet and flax was almost considered a sacred plant because baby Jesus was swept in linen. Women had to curtsey respectfully when they passed the flax field

A swarm of bees must not be pursured in the flax field.

The evening before Walpurgis day linseed had to be strewn around the farm against witchcraft and trolls. To avoid sickness in cattle linseed and earth from the church yard had to be strewn  in the stable and put in a cross over the back and head of the cow. Linseed upon the beams of the stable healed sick pigs.
The seeds were a part of the fodder for bewitched chickens .

People were protected against ghosts when they carried a bag with linseed, magistrantia and fly-rowan. This was effective against ghosts, spectres and other supernatural beings. Against nightmares people strew linseed upon the treshold and went backwards to bed

Linseeds in the coffin tied the dead to the grave, but if the seeds were put in the coffin before the body, they worked opposite.

Linseeds put in the pillow for newborn children made them bright and healthy.

Old Medicine, Viborg Museum, photo gb.

Folk Medicine

The seeds crushed with salt heals snake bites.  Crushed with incense in water and rubbed on watery eyes. Burnt seeds mixed with oil and butter on pillow against hair loss.

 Henrik Smid 1546: Decoct of seeds with honey in water internally and the cooked seeds as a cover for intern diseases. Linseed oil rubbed on stomach against colics. Linseeds or the oil rubbed on burns.

Simon Paulli 1648: Crushed seeds cooked in milch or water upon swellings. Raw flax yarn cooked in lye as a cover, easing lower back pain caused by blatterstone.

The linseeds were written into the Pharmacopoeia in 1722

Medieval pharmacy, wikipedia

Linseeds were a common laxative, sold at the pharmacy as blatter tea. The tea was used as gargling for a sore throat and the crushed seeds as a cover. The linseed oil and against colics and poisoning. The linseed- tea to drink for colics, kidney pains, painful urination, dry cough and blood cough. Seeds cooked with sugar candy against cough. Linseeds and lard cooked in vinegar as an ointment for poison in the body. Linseed decoct was said to cure gangrene, sciatic and sinus infections. Seeds cooked with oats and alun in beer put on erysipelas. Frost in hands rubbed with linseeds cooked in water.


Domestic animals.
Linseed and linseed oil were used for cattle, horse, dogs, sheep and chicken.

Source: Brøndegaard, Dansk Etnobotanik Folk og Flora
Photo: grethe bachmann 
Photo Copy:wikipedia

______________________________________________________

   For further info about flax/ linseed see English Wikipedia.

The first Danish Apoteks - Mummy Powder and Scorpion Oil

Danish Apotek, 1700s

Medieval pharmacy

The Danish

apotekerskilt, Tønder, foto: gb

word Apotek comes from the Greek word apothéke which means storage or repository. (English: pharmacy).
The history of the Danish apotek is linked to the common cultural history.The medieval church was encompassing, the medieval Chapters were cultural centers with tasks in administration, education, justice and disease control. Far back in time church people were engaged in medicine and many of those are known by name. Many medical and herbal books were published, but most of them are lost. The development of the apotek/pharmacy is seen in the Pharmacopoeia (= the authorized lists of the medcine which an apotek had to hold). The Pharmacopoeia of 1772 is a turning point. Although some uneffective medicine still was accepted after this time  - like the scorpion oil - the deciding principle was from now on a medical science which rested upon experience, and the old folk-remedies had to give way. The change must be seeen in connection to the interest of natural science and the new discoveries which grew up in the 1700s.

Apotekerhaven, Viborg,

Already in the 1400s were the first traces of an independent pharmacy state in Denmark. Before the permanent apoteks were established, the medicine were procured in other ways. The relict flora by the Danish klosters show the cultivation of medical herbs,  but herbs were also imported and sold in common trade. In the Hanseatic tariff lists from 1368-69 are fx mentioned cloves, sapphron, cumin, poppy oil and ginger. Although some of it was sold as spice, a big part was probably meant for medicine. The border between medicine and spice was undeterminable, also later in time. The oldest Danish apoteks/pharmacies did not look like a pharmacy of today, they were storages and sales of medicine , herbals, details and much more, fx wine. A command from king Hans in 1510 informs that his pharmacist had to send some wine for the king's use.

Viborg Bymuseum

Not until late in the 1700s a more rational production of medicine began to build upon a practical scientific experience, but it never displaced the ineffective compositions and folk remedies, which had great confidence among people, like frk. Thunes balsam (Miss Thune's balm) which uncritically was used for all kinds of diseases and small ailments.  A detailed description was printed in a medical paper in Copenhagen 18 March 1767:  "This balm is a safe healing remedy for all appropiate, wounds by fire or boiling materia , or where the skin is scraped. It also cures frost-boils in hands and feet. It cleans and heals all deep wounds either if they are chopped, cut, encountered, even fistuleuse or desperates, when it is hot injected or injected in another way."

Mortars in the serpentine stone were used in the Danish apoteks since they would supposedly jump into pieces if they came in contact with poison.

Lapis-pin, Museum, the pin in the top is the hell-stone

The primitive stage of the pharmacy and medicine is also seen in king Chr. 6's medical history.  4-5 years before his death he had an abscess on the gums, which was treated with Lapis infernalis, helvedessten (hell's stone). His valet got the dubious task to treat the king, and it went completely wrong. The stone passed down the king's throat, and the valet became so frightened that he concealed the thruth. A borax powder could have saved the situation, but the valet was so scared of the king's eventual rage that he just advised him to take laxative in order to drive out the rest of liquid from the abscess. This accident might have been a cause of the king's later sickness and death.

Mummy Powder

One of the oddest medical remedies, which was popular from the 12th to the 18th century in Europe, involved powdering the remains of the ancient dead. Mummy powder was among the first of the old medicines which the new medical science rejected. Nevertheless this strange médicament  - like the scorpion oil - was used in Denmark almost up till present. In 1866 Assens Apotek (in Denmark) sold mummy powder, and still in 1927 a German medical firm sold mummy. Asphalt - which was used by the embalming  - was higly recommended as a medicine from old times, and it was probably the confidence in this substance which was transferred to the mummy medicine. The belief in the eternal conservation of the mummy was also a part of it. People might have imagined that the embalmed body contained a substance which might secure them something like an everlasting life. In accordance to this the mummy medicine was also the part of a powder which could help against death itself. In the later folk medicine mummy was together with other substances used in a means against dropsy. At the Danish Apoteks (pharmacies) mummy was sold in the name armesynderkød ( poor sinner's meat). Several samples of the fabric have been preserved, some contains without doubt real mummy, while others probably consists of asphalt.

Mummy. Louvre

Mummy powder was obtained by raiding ancient tombs and plundering the corpses found inside. These could include the most famous mummies in history, Egyptian mummies, or other less well known corpses. Once the corpse was obtained, it would be ground down into dust. The powder could be mixed with various other substances and was prescribed to treat everything from headaches, stomach ulcers, to tumors. It could be taken orally or used as a plaster or salve. It was so popular that any apothecary carried mummy powder among its stock. Humans weren't the only beings alleged to benefit from mummy; sick hawks were thought to benefit from their own grade of mummy powder.





Scorpion-oil

Ærø Apotek, Skorpionolie, Wikipedia

         
In ancient Danish medical books is mentioned a means against the poison of the scorpion - and this is obvious a loan from the South. In ancient times medicine against the scorpion's bite was sought after in the southern countries where the poisonous insect lived. Among the recommended means were some which used the animal itself as an antidote. The scorpion played a big role for the medical science up high in time, also in Denmark.
Common scorpion oil was produced by soaking 20 scorpions in oil from 1 pound of bitter almonds.

Besides this there was a medicine like the mixed mathiols scorpion oil for internal use which was used against plague-abscesses, smallpox, fever and paralysis. About year 1800 the scorpion slipped out from the part of the recommended medicine, but it lived on in folk medicine - and the scorpion oil was still sold at the Danish apoteks. In "Den gamle By" (Museum) in Århus is kept a bottle with scorpions found at Frijsenborg Apotek (established 1842) at the village Hammel. A pharmacist at Odder Apotek says in 1961 that it might still happen that someone asks for scorpion oil.
This medicine was from ancient times connected to the astrology. The scorpion gave name to a constellation, and it must be a reflection of this connection between medicine and astrology when the medical doctores at the University of Copenhagen were made responsible for making an almanac. The astrology had also its oppponents though, one was the archbishop in Lund (1201-23) Andreas Sunesøn, who said that "the stars do not show us future events as if man was in the happy possition of the gift of reason and was dependent on a star without feeling and life." Still today 800 years later some people might remember his sensible words.








Source: Danish Archaological Magazine: Skalk, nr. 2, 1961, Sundhed til Salg, Helge Søgård. 


photo from Viborg and Tønder: grethe bachmann
other photos from wikipedia.

Rosemary /Rosmarin

Spice Herb

Rosmarinus officinalis.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.” 

William Shakespeare, Hamlet 

Rosmarinus officinalis is an evergreen halfbush which is often sold and cultivated as if it was a perennial. It is cultivated for its aromatic leaves, used in various Mediterranean inspired dishes. The plant contains a strongly fragrant tacky rresin. The leaves are narrow and grey-greenish and the little flowers are pale blue to dark blue . tTe flowers arrive early spring (in Denmark often in March-April). The fruits are nuts, each with an Elaiosome. The roots go very deep with many fine side roots. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which includes many other herbs. The name "rosemary" derives from the Latin  "dew" (ros) and "sea" (marinus), or "dew of the sea" The plant is also sometimes called anthos, from ancient Greek, meaning "flower". Rosemary's natural habitat is in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, where it prefers light-open, dry places with a calcareous and nutrient-poor soil. Rosemary is used as a decorative plant in gardens where it may have pest-control effects.


Rosemary in Denmark.

In Denmark rosemary is one of the oldest houseplants, it was cultivated around 1500s and maybe even earlier. In 1559 the king's gardener had to provide rosemary plants for the king's herb garden, and in 1618 were 60 rosemary plants provided for the royal garden at Rosenborg slot. It is told about one of Chr. 4's daughters that she did not tolerate the scent of rosemary since it reminded her of the death of her childhood friend. Rosemary is mentioned in the first Danish garden book from 1647. It was said that it should be planted and cultivated in "posh gardens" . The plant was also a part of the verse in some Danish psalms. Rosemary was used as a houseplant outside in summer and inside in winter, but the cultivation ceased almost completely around 1850, and in 1880 Rosemary was referred to as a rare plant.  


Medicine/Folk Medicine
Christiern Pedersen 1533: wine decoction to drink against various diseases; to smoke the crushed plant into the nostrils against headache and sneezing; a water- or beer decoction of rosemary and 
rue (herb-of-grace) -  or a wine decoction of rosemary against epilepsy. The leaves were eaten as an appetizer. The dry leaves to take with a drink against stomach pain. Crushed rosemary upon haemorroids. Rub black teeth with a powder of burnt twigs.
Henrik Smid 1546: wine decoction of flowers to drive out jaundice, to counteract shortness of breath, stimulate the digestion , this decoction was an antidote, it was cleansing the blood and it was diuretic.  Destilled water from the plant in order to regain a lost voice. Rosemary sugar strengthens the brain and heart and counteracts poison.
Simon Paulli 1648 said:  " this herb is one of the very best for the weaknesses of the head and extremely good to use against strokes, epilepsy, catarrh, weak eyes, dizziness, toothache, pain in the tongue and in the whole body, stitches in the chest, shortness of breath , vomitting, jaundice, colic, flatulence, diarrhea ". Malaria patients were cured with Rosemary oil. The pharmacy had a Rosemary balm, which was rubbed under the nose in times of the plague . 

The rosemary leaves and flowers were written into the Pharmacopoeia in 1772  and in a medical book in 1807.

In the 1700s and 1800s:  rub rosemary oil on the forehead against frenzy. Wine and rosemary for a weak heart ; rosemary as a component in snaps against gout. Tea of rosemary and lemon balm against various diseases; rosemary tea was a good help for the whooping cough. Old peope should bathe their weak eyes with rosemary in snaps; a decoction of rosemary against toothache and against hair loss.

Live stock: horses were smoked with rosemary for various horse-diseases. A decotoion of rosemary drove out lice, mange and scab of livestock.

Other use: Rosemary is used in the kitchen for both food and drink. The leaves are used to flavor various foods, such as stuffings and roast meats. The dry leaves in vinegar and for giving a steak a taste of game .Rosemary oil is used for purposes of fragrant bodily perfumes or to emit an aroma into a room. It is also burnt as incense, and used in shampoos and cleaning products.


Legend/Mythology
According to legend, it was draped around the Greek goddess Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, born of Uranus' semen.  The Virgin Mary is said to have spread her blue cloak over a white-blossomed rosemary bush when she was resting, and the flowers turned blue. The shrub then became known as the "Rose of Mary"

In the Middle Ages, rosemary was associated with wedding ceremonies. The bride would wear a rosemary headpiece and the groom and wedding guests would all wear a sprig of rosemary. From this association with weddings, rosemary was thought to be a love charm.

In myths, rosemary has a reputation for improving memory and has been used as a symbol for remembrance during war commemorations and funerals in Europe and Australia. Mourners would throw it into graves as a symbol of remembrance for the dead.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance." (Hamlet, iv. 5.) In Australia, sprigs of rosemary are worn on ANZAC Day and sometimes Remembrance Day  to signify remembrance; the herb grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Hungary water was first prepared for the Queen of Hungary Elizabeth of Poland to " ... renovate vitality of paralyzed limbs ... " and to treat gout. It was used externally and prepared by mixing fresh rosemary tops into spirits of wine. Don Quixote, (Part One, Chapter XVII) mixes it in his recipe of the miraculous balm of Fierabras.


Music/ TV 
The song "Scarborough Fair " (popularised by Simon and Garfunkel) has the refrain "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" which is also the title of their third studio album.

Rosemary and Thyme is the name of a British TV detective series, starring Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferrim.
Rosemary song by Suzanne Vega, first published 1998 on her album Tried and True. 



Source: Brøndegaard, Dansk Etnobotanik, folk og flora, bd. 4. / Dansk wikipedia /British Wikipedia
photo: wikipedia
sketch: gb

Crocus / Saffron

Danish: Krokus/ Safran)

Crocus is one of the very first spring flowers in the garden


Saffron is commonly used in the Oriental and Mediterranean kitchen.

The wild botanical crocus arrives already in January, and is succeeded by the various garden crocus with the big flowers from February into the month of March. The wild crocus has its origin in the Mediterranean. From Homer's time saffron was called krokos in Greek language. The poet uses saffron as a metaphor for the golden colour of dawn, but the word krokos is also used in Greece for the similarly coloured egg yolk. The word saffron derives from the Arab word Zafaran meaning yellow - it was mentioned as far back as 1500 b.c. in many classical writings as well as in the Bible.

The large-flowered crocus origins from The Alps and the Pyrenees. For garden this crocus is available in many variants. The yellow ones hold much C-vitamin, and the birds love them. They need C-vitamins after the winter. Wise little birds. Crocus react to the light, they open their heads on sunny days and remain closed on cloudy days.

saffron (wikipedia)

The first historic signs of saffron reach far, far back. Saffron based pigments have been found in prehistoric paints to illustrate beasts in 50.000 year old cave art found in today's Iraq. Saffron threads have been found interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets, and 4.500 years ago it was known in China for medicinal use. The Phoenicians used saffron coloured sheets for weddings, and they traded saffron widely across the Mediterranean. In Kashmir was the first real saffron production. The first crocus was planted here before the birth of Christ.

(wikipedia)

The ancient Greeks and Romans also prized saffron for its use as a perfume and deodorizer. It was also used as a mascara, and saffron threads were stirred into wines, used in potpourris and offered to the deities. It was said that Cleopatra used saffron in her bath, and so did Alexander the Great, but it was for healing his wounds in war.  According to Greek mythology the handsome mortal Crocos fell in love with the beautiful nymph Smilax. But his favors were rebuffed by Smilax and he was turned into a beautiful purple crocus flower.

After the fall of Rome it seems that saffron disappeared from Europe until the 8th century when the Arabs brought it to Spain. Two centuries after their conquering Spain they planted saffron throughout Andalucia, Castile, La Mancha and Valencia. The spice was especially cultivated in Valencia and La Mancha and in the 14th century also in southern France.

The interest for saffron returned when 13th century crusaders brought saffron back from Asia to Northern Europe, where it was used as a dye and condiment. The Saffron Walden in Essex had an industry , where saffron was used in cooking and for dyeing textiles. A recipe from the 1500s has a Fish Cake, where cod is mixed with figs, raisins, cinnamon, saffron and other good stuff.

Saffron is the most precious and most expensive spice in the world - actually it was one of the world's most costy substances throughout history. It's hard work to pluck the crocus, first the flowers, then the stigmas have to be removed - and then they are dried over a charcoal fire. It takes about 80.000 stigmas (some info say 225.000) to produce one pound of dried stigmas.

Paella (wikipedia)

Saffron is very intensive and therefore used in minute amounts. In cooking it's especially known in Spanish Paella, French Bouillabaisse, Italian Risotto Milanese, English Saffron Cakes and Indian Biryani.

Spain is the premier producer of saffron today.







Danish Source: Brøndegaard-samlingen, Dansk etnobotanik, Folk og flora, Krokus: 
In Denmark was before 1800 made attempts to cultivate saffron crocus , the Danish king gave 200 rigdaler for this purpose. the saffron was also usable for dyeing silk and linen, but after hard winters and dry summers the project failed.
In medicine in DK saffron was used to treat anemia, to regulate menses and to drive out the placenta. Saffron was stated in the Pharmacopoeia in 1772.    

photo crocus and kitchen: grethe bachmann
other photos: wikipedia. 

The Vikings - Legal System - Survival of the Fittest.

viking house, Fyrkat/photo gb

Denmark 
Denmark was in the Viking period divided in about two hundred districts, the socalled "herreds", which each had a ting (thing). The thing was the counsil of free swordsmen coming together to manage the law, to issue rulings, and to discuss matters of a more common character..

The law was a complex of customs, something which was remembered from generation to generation. Therefore the thing-assembly was often a case of old men - with support from the old rhyme-formulas (stavrim)  - to remember and claim the law..

The punish provisions towards acts of violence or murder - among free men - were built  upon mandeboden (man's fine) and its various degrees: full mandebod for a killing or cutting off the nose; half mandebod for an eye, quart  mandebod for an ear etc. The warrant was made by the thing-men themselves,  and the law was no doubt not rarely bent to the power, since the enforcement  of the court decision had no special protection. If a member of a strong family during the eternal feuds among the families had insulted or violated a man from a weaker family and had been sentenced a mandebod on the thing, then the weaker part  had to recover the mandebod (the man's fine) himself, which might be difficult or even impossible.This was a shortage of the legal system.
.

law document Sweden wikipedia

The word herred is interpreted as hærfølge = (army escort ). Maybe this points back to a military system where each district (herred)  was obliged to make men or ships available during war. Or else the really big decisions - like election of a king, war and peace or alike - or a court decision of a special complicated or questionable case - were assigned to the big landsting, which in Jutland was held in Viborg, at Zealand in Ringsted and in Skåne (Scania) in Lund. Such difficult cases could be decided by holmgang (duel) following special rules or by  jernbyrd  (ordeal by fire) where they in reality pushed the case respectively to the right of the stronger or the judgment of the gods.

Theft was a dangerous thing to be engaged in, the punishment was simply hanging  which was not  from moral principles, but contrarily with a base in the very realistic view that the thief was a poor man (that was why he stole) and a poor man had only one thing to lose: his life.

Germanic assembly, wikipedia

Like in all other human societies the society of the Vikings was also built on relations and Community. The worst punishment was social exclusion : he who denied to bend to the decision of the herreds-ting and therefore had his case brought to the landsting exposed himself to exclusion The landsting had the power to declare outlaw inside its area. In the length to live his life in isolation, without legal rights, being hunted, excluded from the circle of his fellowmen:  this was impossible, the only ways out were exile or death. But for the man who respected the Viking society's unwritten customs and the rooted view of the law  from the time immemorial, this man could live a flourishing life in prosperity, if he was versatile and had "god  lykke". (good fortune.)

Viking house, Fyrkat, photo gb

A magnate from the grade of the earls had enough to organize, he might lead his own Viking expedition in the summertime, either alone or together with other chiefs and come back for winter with a good prey. He might also be a merchant and lead his own trade business and he had to take care of his own farming. Finally he had to take care of secular and clerical public offices : to judge at the thing and to see to that he - as the gode (Gothi)  of his hov (court) took into account the demand of the gods when it came to cultivating the land and taking care of the law.

Uffe hin Spage, Lorenz Frölich, wikipedia

A means to decide disputes between persons  - or through them between families -  was the holmgang (the duel) The oldest description in a written law fragment from Sweden is about a holmgang-  and it reflects in a realistic way both the sensitive honour which was so vulnerable:  to insult with words and the brutality of the law of the strongest man. The fragment says: " if you say insulting words like: You are not equal to men or: You are not a real man " -  then the two men will have to meet where three roads cross. If he who said the word comes,  and if he who was told the word does not come,  then he'll have to stay as he was named, and then he is not able to give oath or to be a witness - neither in a man's or in a woman's case. If he comes who was told the word , but not he who said the word, then he'll cry three times: "Nidding"  and make a mark in the field. And  he who said the word will then be an inferior man since he dare not stand by what he said.

Now they'll both meet fully armed: if he falls who said the word: a word-crime is the worst - the tongue is the first killer:  he lies on the ground upon his deeds.



Sweden
A similar picture of the legal system in the Viking period is seen in Sweden. Here is also a family society, a life built upon the land-properties of the family and the inner solidarity,  with orally handed-down laws and rules of law, which were put into power by warrants at the thing-assembly of the herred (Swedish: de hundradets). Here is undoubtedly also a system of a common war oganization. And here is also a limited royal power. In the Ansgar- biography is said about Birka, that it was a usual custom to let common cases decide by the agreement of the people rather than on the king's demand. Two concepts were in front of life of the Nordic Viking: den gode lykke = the good fortune - the prosperity of the fortunate man - and æren (the honour) which had to be protected and must not be breached.

Norway

Hakon the Good, P.N.Arboe, wikipedia.

The same schedule is found in Norway as to the secular building of society. The indivual bygder (settlements) had their local thing-assemblies, and the large districts had their own more comprehensive things, where chiefs and old experienced men were judges and interpretors of the law. In Norway is also the family society with the single man, the private person, who seeks his right supported by his family via mandebod for a revenge-killing.
Like in Denmark and Sweden the problem is the same in Norway. Direct primary sources to a knowledge about the legal system of the Viking period are missing,  it is only possible to refer to the medieval laws, the * Frostatingloven  and the *Gulatingloven  (both laws are Norwegian laws, which acccording to the sagas were ordained by Hakon the Good for respectively Trøndelagen and Vestlandet). Like in Denmark there is reason to believe that there was a military system too in Norway ( a leding) where each district  was obliged to deliver ships and warriors to a common defense. And like in Denmark and Sweden it is also the same for Norway:  that the royal power was limited by the thing-assemblies and  folkets vilje ( will of the people). Anyway the king's power must not be too much reduced, for the king had his team of housecarls , his hird, which from an original private organization grew up to a half public factor  - a very active means of power which became the core of a larger army 



Iceland.

A Gothi /priest) Lund, wikipedia.

Iceland had no king. The legal system was established after west-Norwegian design and after the rules in the later Gulatinglov. This thing-constitution became common to the whole island from year 930. The common thing was held each summer( named altinget), with the lovsigemand (the man who  recited the law rules) and with the heathen priests (the Gothis) as the real rulers. The island was later divided into four quarters each with 3 (one with 4) herredsting. Since the magnates were goder (Gothis) it must be said about the Icelandic free state that it was a regular chief-union without a king. An oligarchy in a classical saying.

Source: Johannes Brøndsted: Vikingerne;. Vikingen hjemme, Samfund.  Ggyldendal 1960