Worts And All
July's Newsletter
As I walk the bone dry path through the fields of legumes and wildflowers that hope to feed the soil ready for the coming crops, candy cane convolvulus scatter the edges like spotlights, the merry skylarks and grazing bullocks my sound engineers. Just a few steps ahead of me, dragonflies and darters flit and hover, leapfrogging each time they feel the vibrations of my footfall move closer.
The hedgerow nursery is silent once more, fledglings now hunkered down in the fields and the dog roses, a clear contrast from their blousy cousins spilling out over the garden walls, tilt towards the sun.
Many foraging treasures have been lost under the nettles and brambles; this spring’s rains have been good for these plants. You can of course make some wonderful dishes with nettles but at this time of year they are leggy, angry and a little sensitive about being picked. I often think about the sister in the story of The Six Swans, at this point in the year. She collected, processed, wove and stitched nettles all year round in order to create the six nettle shirts - I hope she picked the nettles in the spring.
If you know which names to call though, nature still has plenty to offer*. In the fields, ribwort stands tall, its halo of seeds reflecting the sun. Ribwort is a cousin of broad leaf plantain. It has much thinner leaves with clear ribs leading to its names ‘Ribwort’ and ‘Narrow Leafed Plantain’. The wort on the end of the former indicates that it has some use, either about the home or as a healing herb. In this case it is an antihistamine and can be used on nettle stings as a much better alternative to dock.
Walking the rivers this month, water starwort has shown us a pretty mat of tiny starred leaves, which have been used for respiratory and digestive problems because of its anti-inflammatory properties.
In the garden, I have a larder of pulmonaria, also known as lungwort, again useful for lung conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, coughs and colds. The saponins in soapwort means it does what its name suggests and can be used as a mild soap or antibacterial detergent and hedge woundwort, with its tiny dark pink hooded flowers, well that speaks for itself.
So as you can see, nature offers us its whole self - worts and all.
July's stories are of old houses with walls full of tales, This year I’m alternating the theme of the stories I’m telling with one week of ‘Fantastic Beasts’ that includes dragons, trolls and musical donkeys and then the next week, stories of the yrpling, pronounced earthling, or in modern English land worker. Yes, farming tales it is with boggarts, gold spinning dwarves and fairy cows abound. For which week I’m telling which tales, check out the event listings below.
This month, landing in inboxes for all, there will be the usual book review, events and updates, with a break in the podcast as Season 4 ends and I prep for Season 5 which I hope to start in the late autumn.
I have stopped by occasionally over the last couple of months with the odd post for paid subscribers but regular paid content will be back on a monthly basis with The Story Forecast in October.
In the meantime, I hope your July is full of life and love, worts and all.
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Plant Of The Month
Mallow
This beaut’ sprung up in my garden this year, possibly as a result of some wildflower seed-bombs a friend gifted me. The garden is a bit wild at the moment with plenty of flowers for insects and cover for the baby birds, which I can hear whistling to their parents from the undergrowth. Yes, the robins have fledged!
Mallow is reasonably easy to identify with its pink, faintly striped, five-petaled flowers. According to ‘The Woodland Trust’,
‘Leaves are rich in protein, calcium, iron and vitamin C and in traditional medicine they’ve been used to treat constipation and diarrhoea, dry throat and chesty cough’.
What a hero!
July’s Podcast :
I love the British Museum and so I hesitated to share this or even listen to it in the first place. In the end I listened, because as someone working in museums and heritage I was curious as to how anyone working in this area could want to do anything other than preserve the artefacts they have been given care of and I’m sharing as the theme of this newsletter is, after all, ‘Worts And All’.
This is an absolutely superb bit of investigative journalism and does far more to show how the thefts that were uncover in 2023 occurred, than the half hour documentary currently on BBCiPlayer. The motive is still not really clear as the case is ongoing but how it happened is a lesson for us all.
It shows the complexities and politics of what happened and more importantly how the British Museum have learnt from it and are moving forward. I for one will be paying more attention to antiquarian gems in the future. Unfortunately, the recovering gems exhibition has finished but you can read about what the museum is doing here .
Upcoming Events For July/August :
29th July & 2nd August - Fantastic Beasts, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here
30th July - Bard workshops at Children’s Day Soberton
5th & 9th August - Farming Tales, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here
19th & 23rd August - Fantastic Beasts, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here
26th & 30th August - Farming Tales, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here
For more information and to book me for your event, visit my events page using the button below.
Thank you for supporting this newsletter through June. Supporting my work in this way allows me to continue to find new stories and research the old ways, and I thank you from the bottom of my storytelling heart.
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You Are Called Una, The Oldest Of Herbs: Mugwort
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July’s Read:
Continuing my cosy crime reading theme, I’m reading the first of Lucy Foley’s murder mysteries as recommended by
and described by Tiffany as ‘folksy’. Review coming soon.*As always the exploration of plants as medicine within this newsletter is for entertainment purposes only. I am not a herbalist nor do I recommend seeking these remedies if you are not absolutely sure what you are doing. If you are unwell in any way, please seek a medical professional’s advice.
