As I have mentioned before, we live in the woods in Appalachia.  The property is loaded with all sorts of animals, including white-tailed deer, opossums, raccoons, gray squirrels, a variety of mice and other small rodents.  We also have many types of songbirds, ravens, barred-owls, and red-shouldered hawks.  American Black Ducks sometimes nest in the field as well and Canadian Geese have raised their young in the stream on the property.  In addition to that, the property has a feral cat colony that we TNR and support as we can (you can follow the feline adventures HERE).
 

The creek itself has small fish such as minnows.  It also is a state-stocked stream for trout from February through May.  We also have crawdads, loads of them, and occasionally they are large enough to get claw meat out of!
 
This summer when family was here fishing for crawdads, I had an idea that I would try to assemble a primitive trap and catch some myself.  I finally had time to do it this weekend to test this out.
 
First though, crayfish are period for my persona.  Not this species (apparently American ones are invasive in England and they practically beg people to catch and eat them, article HERE), but they were a viable food source.  The Medieval Histories blog has a nice article that lead me to an early 16th century painting of crawfish catching in Austria as well as a stellar image of a clay trap that I hope to replicate this winter.

In the painting, which comes from the Fishing Book of Maximilian I, you can see a trap in one area of it, it is similar in shape to commercial traps you can buy today and I believe it works similarly to the style I opted to construct, even if it looks far more refined than mine.
 

​A fifteenth century painting from Lombardy possibly shows people dining on crayfish.  Unfortunately, the article that discusses this painting, “The Cultural History of Crayfish”, is not one I have been yet able to access by any means.  I do, however, wonder if these are actually meant to be lobsters?
 
And most importantly, it is detailed in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a commonplace book from Italy that was based on an 11th century Arabic medical work.  The book was reproduced in Latin from the 13th century onward and first printed in the 16th century.  This text notes that the nature of the crayfish is warm and dry in the second degree, with the optimal ones being fresh and yellow colored.  For uses?  They increase coitus (lol)! Danger in them is sleeping, but this can be neutralized by sprinkling them with almonds and olive oil.

​Typical of myself, I had another great reference for crayfish in the Middle Ages, but I was plowing through books at the time and not really taking notes.  When I find that again, I will amend this entry with the information.
 
Enough background, I decided to make a trap.  I did not really plan anything or research beyond anything mentioned above, and decided to go with a primitive trap style that I had vaguely seen on TV during one of the thousand episodes of reality survival shows that are a huge hit with my partner.  I understood the basic concept of using a cone within a cone that allows them to easily swim in to find the bait, but it makes it difficult for them to get back out.  I gave myself the parameter of using all foraged material, with the exception of some nettle yarn that I had in my stash.  Nettle is a bast fibre (along with things like linen and hemp) and these are very strong when wet.  This yarn is one that I had purchased some time ago for weaving but it is too coarse for most of the weaving I do, something which made it a great candidate for this (and it helps bust-the-stash). 

The uprights for both the inner and outer basket were harvested when I felled a dying lilac tree in the yard.  There were new shoots coming up that were delightfully straight and still pliable so I made use of those.  These were all cut out with modern loppers during the process of yardwork.

​For the woven pieces, I started foraging with just a knife (a modern survival type knife as I do not yet have a larger period one), but I have issues with my hands that forced me to resort to modern tools after about an hour of cutting branches.  I used the loppers (cannot find my pruners yet again) and scissors to finish the task.
 
I started by fashioning four hoops to fix the uprights too (two for each cone).  I used long, thin lilac shoots for these.  I tied heavier lilac shoots to those to form the base of the structure. 

I started weaving in the rest of the small lilac shoots in and out of the uprights until the whole basket was filled in.  I quickly ran out of lilac and tried several other types of plants on the property.  There is some type of young honeysuckle branches that worked fabulously as long as I harvested the newer ones (the older were too ‘woody’ and broke easily). Autumn Olive/Silverberry also worked well, provided, again, that I used only the younger branches.  Some things did not work at all, and those being the stems from Staghorn Sumac.  They were straight and pliable, but bend sharply with very little pressure.

Eventually I had raided all the viable honeysuckle and I had to quest a bit further and found a bit of vine from wild grapes.  Only a little of this was still pliable enough to work, but the moonseed vines were amazing, and the small inner basket was almost entirely comprised of that plant.
 
The inner basket fit well into the outer one but I was worried that smaller critters could slip out, so I stuffed in twists of invasive stiltgrass to fill in the gap between the two.

After baiting it with cat food (I had planned to use dinner leftovers but there were none), I took the trap to the creek last night and chose a somewhat deep (if you can call it that at this time of year) area and laid down the trap, using stones to hold the tail end down and a stick wedged under a log to keep it submerged. 
 
This morning, I dashed down to check my work, and I was delighted to find I had 5 decent sized (for this area) crawdads in the trap!  I initially thought it was four, but saw the fifth hiding in the bottom of it as I was getting ready to release the little guys back to the stream.
 

I am absolutely going to call this trap a success!  I doubt I will make another, it was very, very hard on my hands winding in all of those vines and branches, and construction took about 10 hours.  But I am drying this trap to test out again in the future.

Also, check out this weirdo crawfish (lobster?) from the Medieval Sketches of Villard de Honnecourt, from 13th Century France found on the Medievalist.net. 
​

Before you read the entry below, understand that I am NOT recommending any use of plants with out further research on your part.  I assume no responsibility for what ever dumb mistakes someone else might make.  I know that I can safely consume all items mentioned below because I have researched them (and compared to my own list of allergies, as well as drug allergies) and have safely consumed all items in the past.  Please read this entry on safety HERE.

In my entry here on Mullein, I noted that I wanted to test out Hildegard's cure for soar throats "with pain in the chest".  After harvesting mullein leaves over the last several days, I decided to go ahead and play around with this.

The problem here is that I am fairly certain now that the intention is to use fennel seeds and dried mullein leaves.  My leaves are not yet dry and I did not have seeds here but was able to procure fresh fennel so I figured "what the heck".  

It called for equal measure of the two plant items to be cooked in "good wine" and consumed often.  It does not, however give quantities for any of those items.  I also wondered, when I first read this, if measure for apothecaries in period was more commonly by weight or volume.  Eventually came across some recipes that called for spoonfuls of various things and that at least let me know that in some cases it was by volume.

I opted to make a single cup of wine with a tablespoon each of the two plants.  I chose these proportions based on modern recipes for mullein tea that make use of fresh, rather than dried, plants.  I simmered the chopped fennel and leaves for 15 minutes and let continue to steep as it cooled for another ten.  I strained it through a damp linen cloth into a cup.  In the photos I show it in a clear cup so that the color can be seen as well.

Regarding wine, when I first started looking into these things and noticed that so many recipes called for wine (yay!) I was wondering out loud on Facebook about what type of wine was available.  Some folks chimed in that old wine was used for medicinal concoctions, but I notice that many recipes specifically call for "good wine".  Further research also showed me that depending on the resources that someone in 14th century England had, there was a wide variety of wine available, both white and red, in many types.  English produced wine was white, imported could be either, and I saw that sweet wines were also imported from Greece and elsewhere.

The wine was still clear after the addition of the herbs and only had a slight herbal smell.  The taste was not unpleasant, and as you swallowed it you got a better sense of the herbs in it.  I think, lol, that my wine was starting to turn as it was more sour than it should be and that only increased with cooking.  The concoction was interesting, and I wish I had thought of making this two weeks ago when I did, in fact, have a sore throat.  

I will be procuring fennel seed soon and can repeat this experiment with the dried plant matter as I believe was intended in period.

​The Old English Herbarium has Mullien having such properties as rendering someone carrying it fearless in face of terror or if approached by wild beasts (Medieval Herbal Remedies, p181).  Another use is as a cure for gout that is rendered by bruising the leaves and placing the plant on the sore spot whereafter the patient will be able to walk in a few hours.  


This leads me to something I have been wondering since the outset of this project.  Often there is nothing to distinguish whether a plant might be needed fresh or dried for it to be deemed useful. This has led me to wonder if some remedies were only available in the summer.  For this example, that the leaves need to be bruised is key.  That indicates a fresh plant.  Fortunately for medieval people, the leaves of the first year plants often remain green in the winter (second year will dry up after flowering).

n her work, Hildegard notes that Mullien cooked with meat and “no other seasoning” and eaten often will strengthen the heart and make one happy.  For a hoarse voice or soar throat with pain in the chest, cook the Mullien with an equal amount of fennel in good wine, straining through a cloth and drinking often. (p115)

As mentioned before, the book Leechcraft discusses possible confusion with this plan an a variety of others.  It notes that an early English plant named “molin” is another item that could be our modern Mullien, and that this plant had sedative properties and was used widely for centuries for coughs and diarrhea and as lamp wicks.  (P142)

That last is one thing that I have read over and over in folklore or entries online for this plant.  This fascinates me.  I have seen references to it being used by miners in the US as torches, by ancient Roman’s to light the way in funeral processions and it being supposedly used by witches.  None of these sources were particularly academic, but I still am very intrigued.  I have seen it mentioned that they are dipped in tallow, wax or oil to produce the Mullien torch.  I have collected some stalks and plan to test them with both beeswax and olive oil.  The hope is to test these out at some point this week.

I also have gathered some leaves and will be drying them to add to the apothecary that I am building.
​

Persona Summary:

• This plant existed in 14th Century England, though the English sources are ambiguous as to which plant is which where this is concerned.  It was used and noted elsewhere so it is quite possibly something that would have been known
• Plausible foraged or cultivated medicinal source (add to my personal apothecary)

Projects:

• Test out how well the flower stalks work as torches
• Test out Hildegard's recipes for both sore throat and as an additive to meat merely to see how the concoctions taste: COMPLETE.  You can see the post about this HERE. 

​

List of Resources can be found HERE

​Disclaimer: I am an amateur at woodscraft and herblore.  Nothing below should be taken as advice or recommendations.  I am merely experimenting.  Please do your own research before consuming or using any plant for medicinal purposes.
 
The plague, and working from home, has given me a unique opportunity to watch the land around me change from year to year.  Several years ago, the invasive Japanese Stiltgrass was the dominant ground cover here, especially near my garden.  Last year, it was Cleavers (which I will talk more about soon).  This year, it is Chickweed.  There is a thick carpet of it everywhere on the top of this hill and I do not ever recall seeing it in this location before.

Research tells me that this will die off as soon as summer rolls in, but I pulled most of it from around the garden now, and will be pulling more for some experiments over the next few days.
 
The name comes from the fact that apparently chickens love to eat this plant, and the Old English form of the name is ‘cicene mete’ (chicken meat).  The plant is found in association with archaeological digs from the Saxon period in England (McKerracher, Anglo-Saxon Crops and Weeds, 2019).  I will note that the internet states that it initially flourished in Eurasia and naturalized elsewhere over time, but I am not going that deep into the ultimate origins for these things.  There is evidence of the plant from the Coppergate site at York. (Leechcraft, 107) I am looking mainly to see if they would be period for my Forester persona (14th Century England), and clearly it is.

​As I mentioned in my last post, I am very diligent about safety with plants that I am only working with for the first time.  Several sources recommended that you can identify by the flowers (five petals split so deeply that it looks like 10), a broken stem does NOT have milky sap and looking for a line of fine hairs running up the stem on one side (and it shifts position between sets of leaves).  This plant matched numerous photos in books and online and all of the criteria above.

So Chickweed is edible (not recommended for pregnant women) both raw or cooked and supposedly is rather nutritious (and high in iron).  Tonight I incorporated it into my salad, and also plan to eventually sautee a bit in butter to sample.
 
Another relevant thing that I learned this week is that chiggers (Trombicula alfreddugesi), the menace of the region where I am in the US, apparently have a close relative that lives in England that has the common name Harvest Mite (Neotrombicula autumnalis).  Chigggers eat me alive in the late spring/summer, and I am starting to see the wisdom of hosen and braies for my forestry project.  Yes, it is May 17 and I have my first three bites already.

These bites will be a weeks-long-pain but, they also give me the opportunity to try out a medical application of Chickweed!  Supposedly it can be chewed a few times and placed on an itchy bite to relieve the itch.  This would be exceptionally practical in the field if the pests managed to skirt the well-covering clothing of the 14th century.  Additionally, a poultice can be made with oil and I might attempt a salve later this week if I can track down my beeswax.
 
So, the Chickweed smells and tastes like fresh mown grass.  It is not unpleasant, but I would not want to eat mouthfuls by itself.  A bit in a salad is pleasant and adds a crunch like sprouts do.  I rough chopped some and ground with a mortar and pestle and it produces a very stringy mass and a rich green liquid.  In the future, I would more finely chop this up (or use a food processor but I am pretty sure that is not period, lol).  I pressed some onto the first bite and it was very cooling and by the time it fell off a minute or so later, the itch had subsided.  Now to see how long the effect lasts.  (ETA, it lasts about 40 minutes.  I only get an hour of relief from Benedryl gel, so that is not bad!)

​I added a bit of vinegar (apple cider because it was the closest thing at that moment) and ground it a bit longer and added that to the second bite.  It held on a bit longer than the first application and had a similar, and possibly slightly better, effect.  Finally, I chewed a bit of the plant and applied that to the third bite.  It held the best and had a similar effect to the first application.

I also heated some water, soaked the plants for about 5 minutes and then ground them up with the mortar and pestle. This concoction was much more sticky and very easily stayed on the bite for a good 5 minutes.  Adding a bit of olive oil (my choices here for fats are butter, olive oil and canola oil and cats would be licking off the butter so I went with the olive) made it cling even more so.  The initial result was that these also stopped the itching but the results did not seem to last nearly as long as the unheated version.
 
I have some more books on the way and am hoping to better learn if any of these plants are mentioned, along with their period uses, in historic sources.  I read from a very tertiary source that this particular plant was also part of medieval gardens, but do not have enough knowledge in that field to know yet if that is true or not.  An article from 2014 in The Telegraph mentions that the book The Medieval Garden (S. Landsberg) references chickweed being added to the cooking pot.  I have a copy coming so look forward to seeing what all is included in that work.

Persona Summary:

• This plant was likely known to a 14th Century Forester in England
• The understood properties in period might have been something that person had come across
• Plausible food source, potentially used in pottages and the like

Projects:

• Test the plant as a poultice on bites
  • Completed - effective at relieving the itching for 30-40 minutes
• Add the greens to a pottage
• Add greens to a salad
  • ​Completed - tastes like grass but adds nice texture
• Create a salve with chickweed to use on scrapes or bites
  • Completed - Further information HERE

​List of Resources can be found HERE 

We were glamping this weekend so most of my SCA work was funneled into geeky conversations with friends and continuing to finish up the seams on the brown wool tunic.  I need to state here that I really hate running stitch.  I like earlier period where it is appropriate to pretty much avoid it entirely.

But, last week I also mostly finished my chausses that I dyed myself, got the cloth dyed for the hood and cut out the braies!  As I finalize things I will be adding them here.

Today I also continued to uproot more poison ivy and yet more garlic mustard.

​And I made a new friend.  Lol

Because this plant is damaging to the environment, I started pulling it up by the roots where ever I found it in the woods here last year.  I removed huge piles of it (and ate huge piles as well, usually sauteed with spinach or other greens from my garden).  My efforts did do at least some good, as I was able to cut the amount that sprang up this year in half.  Onward with this year's weeding!

I uprooted a fair bit of garlic mustard today, and also collected some to add to ingredients from my garden for some cheese and herb hand pies.  My thoughts are that a Forester who rode out to survey his territory every morning would be taking a meal with him so I thought I would both used this foraged item (which was available in medieval Europe) and incorporate it into a portable food source.  Note that this project today is less about redacting a truly medieval recipe, than it is about eradicating a plant that is damaging to the local environment (read more HERE), and making use of a foraged item (as well as random leftovers foraged from my fridge, lol).

So, to that end, I made hand pies that I might craft again when I have the opportunity to do a garbed woods walk with friends.  For the filling I used 6oz of cream cheese (softened), and chopped up two small fronds of parsley, a handful of large spinach leaves, a few chives and the leaves of quite a few Garlic Mustard plants.  I did not note quantities but you can see what I used in the provided image.  I mixed the chopped greens, salt and pepper as well as one egg into the cream cheese and added in a hefty tablespoon of freshly shaved parmesean.

For the pastry, I used 1.25 cups of flour (about half wheat, half white), 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a stick of butter at room temp, cut into small cubes, and 3T cold water.  I mix the flour and salt and then when I add the cubes of butter to the flour I mix them in with my hands, pressing the butter and flour together between my thumb and forefinger.  I work it until the flour and butter is a grainy mixture with some pea sized lumps. I also had a package with about a heaping tablespoon or so of commercially grated parmesean cheese in it that I needed to use up so I mixed that into dough as well.  I have no idea of anyone in the middle ages added hard cheese into crust but it makes a divine pie crust so I used it (sharp cheddar also works well in a crust).

At this point I added in the 3T of water, but I will note, it was almost too much, so I added in a little more flour and, well, pretty much spilled too much into the mix.  This left my dough a bit too dry, but I rolled with it anyways at this point.  I left this to chill in the fridge for 20 minutes while I mixed up the cheese and herb mix.

I rolled out the dough and used a plastic lid to cut circles that I filled with the cheese and greens mixture, rubbed a bit of water around the edges and folded in half, pressing the seam with a fork.  I had enough space on my pan for 5 or so pies so made that many and turned the remaining crust into a small tart.  I could have gotten about 7-8 4.5inch circles out of the dough I made had I done all hand pies.  I brushed the tops with an egg wash and I baked them at 375 degrees F until they were lightly browned.

The pastry is very light and flakey (almost going into puff pastry territory rather than like a denser pie crust).  I over stuffed the hand pies and did not well seal them so they were some what bursting while hot but hold their shape very well once they have cooled down.  They taste FANTASTIC and I will absolutely make these again in a month or so with whatever greens and herbs I have in the garden (or woodlands) at that time.

Persona Summary:

• This plant was likely known to a 14th Century Forester in England
• Plausible foraged or grown food source, potentially used in pottages or where greens are needed

Projects:

• Remove the weed as I see it due to its invasive nature in the US
  • ​Ongoing work
• Cook with the plant
  • ​Completed, see above​

​​
​
​List of Resources can be found HERE

The good folks who introduced me to SCA forestry have a very definite focus on things like survival skills or long 'survival' hikes (not literally survival, but carrying 50lbs for 20 miles and being cold or wet are not my idea of fun).  I assumed, mistakenly, that this was all of what the Forestry program was about.

What I have learned since is that what folks choose to do in it is entirely up them.  One's path might encompass fishing, herblore, edible plants, cooking outdoors, thrown weapons, research... there are so many options.  Knowing that makes this all that much more appealing.

And also?  If I am to be honest, the idea of putting an SCA spin on things I plan to do here mean they are much more likely to actually get done.

While I learn more about the roles of actual Foresters in England in period, I am going to start testing some different paths from an SCA perspective.  One will involve local plants and I am starting that here!

Poison Ivy - Nemesis of the Forest

As a Forester, I would be maintaining the forest for Royal use.  While this particularly annoying plant did not exist in Medieval England, I am fairly certain that if it did it might well have been eradicated from royal presence.

I have been fighting the battle with this weed since before the pandemic.  At one point, the small side yard here was entirely full of it and it was growing as high as my hip.  Weekly battles that involved pulling up the entire root system now have that bit of yard fairly free of the plant, and my garden thrives there in its place.

I now am tackling the ivy in other locations here.  I confess that I get very little reaction to the plant myself.  I only breakout if it touches an open wound, such as a recent scratch.  I still handle the plant with care (and gloves) and make sure to wash any oils off of my skin and clothes because I live with someone who is highly allergic.

At lunch yesterday, I did go out and start to pull the plant from the area around the garage.  I was impressed that one root system that I extracted was nearly 30 feet long!  It is no wonder that this plant spreads as rapidly as it does.

I also did a very small bit of research on this monstrosity.  While the plant is native to North America and Asia, those who came to the New World were fascinated enough with it that they TOOK SOME BACK TO EUROPE AND DELIBERATELY GREW IT.  (Read more HERE )

So, I tackled the weed, and will be continuing to do so as the summer progresses.  Eventually the wood will be safe for his Lordship's wanderings. ;-)

I did start to think of other things as I was ripping up the vines, such as the fact that using gloves is necessary.  While they did not deal with this particular plant in period, there are other tasks that would involve gloves and that brought my mind to the rather cartoonish mittens from the Luttrell Psalter.

The mittens are often depicted as colorful, and below you can see a parti-colored pair and one that is striped, leading me to believe that could well have been crafted from wool in addition to possibly leather.  My next steps here will be to attempt some research on period two-finger mittens to see what I can find out and work towards crafting a set as part of my kit.  I can then test these out against the blistering ivy.