Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Meadow Keep: Celebrating the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs
    Meadow Keep: Celebrating the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs
    Meadow Keep: Celebrating the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs
    Ebook79 pages30 minutes

    Meadow Keep: Celebrating the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs

    By Elizabeth C. Burgess

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    MEADOW KEEP is a journey into the world of herbs that have nourished, cured, and delighted mankind for centuries.

    Did you know that the Pied Piper of Hamelin actually lured the rats with dried valerian? His music was but a decoy.

    Did you know that William Wallace used blue dye from the woad plant to make war paint for his men to wear into battle?

    Queen Elizabeth of Hungary used rosemary water in her bath every day and it kept her young and beautiful. The King of Poland, a handsome man of 54 declared his undying love for her beauty and asked for her hand in marriage and she a woman of 72.

    Llewelyn, Prince of Glamoran lived to be 108 years old by drinking lemon balm tea every morning.

    You might want to make a trip to your garden center and pick up several rosemary and lemon balm plants and many of the other plants mentioned in this collection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateOct 24, 2013
    ISBN9781491822630
    Meadow Keep: Celebrating the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs
    Author

    Elizabeth C. Burgess

    This is Elizabeth Burgess’s second book of poetry. Her first is Meadow Keep: A Celebration of the History, Folklore and Superstitions of Herbs, told in poetry and prose. She calls this collection “life poems.” Burgess spent 25 years teaching in North Carolina schools, including Durham, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, and Scotland County. In 1994 she received the Terry Sanford Award for Creativity in Teaching. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for Key Women Educators, Omicron Chapter in Scotland County, North Carolina. She spent 5 years teaching for the Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Schweinfurt, Baumholder, and Nuremberg, Germany. In the Far East she lived on the huge 7th Fleet Navy Base at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1978, she returned to Germany with her 5-year-old son, Chris. They lived on a small dairy farm in Rohrbach, Germany. She taught in Baumholder, and Chris went to school there. During her years abroad, she visited schools in Germany; Moscow, Russia; and Yokosuka, Japan. After her retirement in 1995 she turned her attention to writing. Her first book was Prison Camp Road, mainly fiction, and set in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Next came A Day In Cascilla, fiction mixed with nonfiction set in the 1930s and ’40s in rural Arkansas and Mississippi. The Twins Café, set in the 1950s in rural North Carolina, is a work of fiction based on the historical fact of the January 1958 clash between the Ku Klux Klan and the Lumbee Indians. Guess who won? Everyone remembers this and continues to talk about it. She has published work in the N.C. Poetry Society’s 60th year anthology Here’s to the Land, Harp Strings, Main Street Rag, Pinesong Awards, Gravity Hill, Potato Eyes, South by Southeast, haiku, Hungry for Home short-short stories, The Book of American Traditions short-short stories, and other anthologies. Burgess held a state office in the N.C.P.S. during Robert Collins’ presidency. At 83 she continues to write and publish. Her next publication will be her second children’s book, set in the 1950s and located in the foothills town of Hudson, N.C., scene of her first book, Prison Camp Road. Titled The Turkey Shoot, it will be a book mainly for boys ages 6–12.

    Read more from Elizabeth C. Burgess

    Related to Meadow Keep

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mixed Blessings

      Oct 20, 2020

      Mixed Blessings
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Nov 17, 2021

      I WAS delighted to see COUNTRY LIFE recently acknowledge good taste, in the guise of the chocolate labrador (‘Sweet like chocolate’, October 20). I’m yet to reach 40, but have experienced much upheaval in my life, both personal and professional. I re

      2 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Feb 7, 2024

      1) How many children did Queen Victoria have? 2) Paris Silverskin is a variety of which vegetable? 3) What is the name of the official church of the Lord Mayor of London? 4) In which musical is Arthur Kipps the main character? 5) What number is repre

      4 min read

    • Article

      Eat On The Wild Side

      Oct 26, 2023

      Eat On The Wild Side
      3 min read

    • Article

      At Home in England

      Aug 1, 2023

      At Home in England
      5 min read

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Mar 27, 2024

      1) In which year did Elizabeth II succeed to the throne? 2) Greensleeves and Early Windsor are varieties of what fruit? 3) In which county is Reading? 4) The Magna Carta was written in which language? 5) What weather-related event can also be describ

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tearoom Mysteries

      Jul 27, 2021

      Tearoom Mysteries
      9 min read

    • Article

      Griefhouse

      Aug 29, 2023

      WHEN MY FATHER DIED, I began making weekly visits to a public grief house. I mean greenhouse. For seven Mondays, I rode the streetcar across town to warm myself in a glass building full of plants. No one had warned me that hard-hitting losses sometim

      3 min read

    • Article

      Adventure Canada

      May 4, 2023

      Adventure Canada
      6 min read

    • Article

      My 3 Greatest Revelations

      Nov 10, 2021

      1 We Are Smothering the Planet with Our Poop The next time you go grocery shopping, look at where your food comes from. Most of it isn’t local. Strawberries come from California or Florida, asparagus from Mexico or Chile, bananas from Brazil or Ecuad

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nina Karnikowski

      Aug 1, 2023

      AS A CHILD, OUR FAMILY HOLIDAYS WERE ALWAYS TO… Places we could get to in our old silver station wagon: Barrington Tops, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast, Noosa. Windows down, a street directory open across the dashboard. We’d listen to the same two cassett

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cooking with Alexandre Dumas

      Mar 16, 2018

      Cooking with Alexandre Dumas
      8 min read

    • Article

      A-wassailing WE WILL GO

      Feb 13, 2020

      A-wassailing WE WILL GO
      4 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Apr 10, 2024

      1) In which century was Charles Dickens born? 2) A clouded agaric is a form of what organism? 3) How many legs appear on the flag of the Isle of Man? 4) In music, what does the term Con sordino mean? 5) By what name is the lima bean more commonly kno

      4 min read

    • Article

      Your Countryside

      Feb 9, 2023

      Your Countryside
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cover To Cover

      Jun 10, 2020

      Cover To Cover
      2 min read

    • Article

      Off The Shelf

      Sep 5, 2018

      COMPILED BY KIRSTY MCKENZIE With the subtitle I learned from the Country Women’s Association of NSW, this little tome is a compendium of tested and trusted recipes from the collective wisdom of the largest women’s organisation in Australia. While har

      3 min read

    • Article

      Shepherd’s Delight

      Apr 10, 2024

      Shepherd’s Delight
      4 min read

    • Article

      Lay Of The Land

      May 3, 2020

      TODAY I’m the self-appointed inspector of the alley behind our house. A mop rests end-up on my neighbor’s chainlink fence, its teardrop loops of purple string drying in the heat. Wisteria, I think, because it’s spring, and I have flowers on the brain

      17 min read

    • Article

      Resurrection Biology

      Feb 27, 2024

      Resurrection Biology
      3 min read

    • Article

      Remembrance Poppy

      Aug 27, 2021

      Remembrance Poppy
      14 min read

    • Article

      Best Books for Christmas

      Nov 10, 2019

      Best Books for Christmas
      9 min read

    • Article

      Growing Pains

      Apr 23, 2020

      Growing Pains
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Meadow Keep

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Meadow Keep - Elizabeth C. Burgess

      B URNET

      Poterium sanguisarba

      24023.png

      His mother, like other mothers

      sending their sons off

      to the Revolutionary War

      tucked a leather pouch of seeds

      and dried burnet leaves

      into his satchel with a tin cup.

      Each mother gave these instructions:

      " Son the night before you go into

      battle make a tea from a few

      dried leaves and seeds of burnet.

      It will slow the blood in your veins

      and if you are shot you will not

      bleed to death."

      As they marched from skirmish to

      skirmish the boys carried their muskets,

      satchels and pouches of burnet leaves

      believing their mothers tale

      of slowed blood.

      They believed even as their

      young blood soaked

      into the American soil

      and the burnet seeds

      took root where they fell.

      W OAD 1

      Isatis tinctoria

      24027.png

      When late spring came to the highlands

      of Iona the men sheared the reluctant sheep.

      The matted wool was cleaned and the women

      spun the wool into skeins of yarn.

      The village lasses were sent into the hills

      with their woolen sacks to collect the leaves

      of the woad plant.

      In the village the mothers poured water

      into the dye pots and added more peat

      to the fire. The lasses sang as they

      returned with the leaves and added them

      to the boiling water. The woad leaves

      would dye the yarn a beautiful indigo for

      their tartans, capes, tams and weskits.

      The eldest daughters would feed the wool

      through the woad water with large wooden

      paddles letting the color seep into

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1