The Sacred Hearth

Romans sent boughs of holly and gifts to their friends during Saturnalia.

Druids decorated their homes with holly in the winter to invite nature spirits to shelter there.

An edict of the Church of Bracara once forbid Christians to decorate their homes with holly, as it was a Pagan practice.

One legend says that holly first sprang from the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Its thorns and red berries represent his suffering and blood.

Holy planted near a home is said to repel poison and protect from witchcraft and lightening. The wood has the power to tame animals and the flowers to freeze water.

In NeoPagan lore, the Holly King rules the dark half of the year, often accompanied by a female Ivy figure. Some believe this figure to be the modern image of Santa Clause.

Like many of the herbs I discuss here, the yew has a long and exciting history. Yew is very strong and resiliant was once considered the material for making longbows. Ideally, the wood for a yew bow was taken from the juncture of heartwood and sapwood, and the bow contained both. Fine bows were traded between the British Isles and the mainland during the Middle Ages and as supplies were depleted, a tax of four bowstaves per tun was imposed on every ship coming into English ports in 1472. In 1562, the Bavarian government sent a plea to the Holy Roman Empire to stop cutting yew, siting damage done to the forests. The great, ancient yews protected other trees in the forest from severe winds. Lucky for the yew trees and their neighbors, guns began replacing bows soon after.

Yew was (and is) also popular in England as a hedge tree, especially in church yards where they stood watch over the headstones, perhaps in reference to their symbolism of immortality, which is likely older than Christianity, or it may have been more practical. Planting trees known to instantly kill grazing animals would have discouraged herders from allowing their animals to trample sacred sites. Some yew trees still stand in church yards that are over 500 years old. Some claim a few of these yews are over 2000 years old and remnants of pre-Christian holy sites that were co-opted by the church. Old Irish tales speak of Baile who died of grief for Ailinn and from his grave a yew tree grew.

The traditioni of planting yews in churchyards and graveyards was immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the following poem:

Old warder of these buried bones,
And answering now my random strokes
With fruitful cloud and living smoke,
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head,
To thee too comes the golden hour
When flower is feeling after flower.

Yew poisoning seems to have been a popular choice for honorouble suicide among the ancient Celts. In their writings, Caesar, Florus and Orosius each recounted instances where Celtic individuals or groups took their own lives by yew poisoning rather than submit to their conquerors.

The Temple of Uppsala in Sweden was a temple devoted to the Norse Gods. There is little archaeological evidence for this temple, but there are a few written accounts from Adam of Bremens, the Norse sagas and Gesta Danorum. No one is sure what happened to it, though it may be speculated that the cathedral that currently stands in the town was built upon its ruins. According to legend, a great sacred evergreen stood in the temple. It is believed by some that this tree was a yew.

Yew are sacred in many Heathen and Druidic traditions. It is one of the five sacred trees of Irish mythology known as the Tree of Ross.

The world laurel comes from the Celtic lawr, meaning "verdant" and nobilis from the latin meaning "noble" or of high rank.

The Greek word for Bay is dhafni, after the nymph Daphne who was changed into a bay laurel tree by Gaea (or her father Peneus, or herself, depending on who's telling the story) to protect her from the unwanted advances of Apollo. The tree is sacred to Apollo and it is said that the Oracle at Delphi chewed the leaves and inhaled the smoke when seeking visions. It is also associated with honor and glory and kings, heroes, triumphant athletes, poets and other great men and women were crowned with it to signify their greatness in both ancient Greece and Rome. Garlands of bay laurel were traditionally bestowed upon the winners of the Pythian games in Greece and later the Olympic games (prior to the change, olive leaves were used).

Today, grand prix winners are given wreathes of laurel. The world laureate as in poet laureate and baccalaureate (lit "laurel berry") are additional reminders of the high status of this tree.

Laurel wreaths were worn for their protective properties. They were believed to protect against the anger of sky Gods and the Emperor Tiberius always wore laurel during thunderstorms to prevent his being struck by lightening. Doctors also wore laurel as it was considered helpful in curing nearly everything.

Common lore tells us that if you grow an aloe plant in your house, it will help prevent household accidents, particularly burns. In Africa, aloe plants are hung over doors to bring luck and drive away evil.

Aloe originated in Africa but has spread throughout the world. The first written record of the use of aloe vera dates back to 2200 B.C.E. and a clay tablet from Sumeria.

The Greek physician Dioscoradis (41 C.E.- 68 C.E.) traveled with the armies of Rome and sung aloe’s praises in his famous herbal. He said the juices of the plant had the power of ‘binding’ and ‘inducing sleep’ and ‘loosens the belly, cleansingi the stomach’. He stated also that the sap was a treatment for boils, hemerrhoids, bruises and mouth irritation and was a good medicine for the eyes. He used the pulverized leaf to stop the bleeding of wounds.

The Egyptions referred to aloe as the plant of immortality and it was included in funerary offerings. It was also considered the plant of eternal youth and Queen Cleopatra is said to have used it as a daily beauty product.

There is a reference in the bible about the apostles applying aloe to the wounds of Jesus.

It is sacred among Egyptian followers of Mohammed who hang aloe above the doorway when they visit his shrine.

In the Congo region of Africa, aloe is used as part of hunting rituals. The body is coated with the juice to obscure the scent of the hunter.

Allspice was used by the Mayans as an embalming agent and by other native South Americans to flavor chocolate. The Arawaks used allspice to help cure and preserve meats (occasionally the meat was their fallen enemies). In the Arawak tongue, meat cured this way was known as boucans. Later settlers who cured meat this way became known as buccaneers, which eventually came to be the word 'buccaneers'.

Allspice was one of the many things discovered by Spanish explorers when they landed in the West Indies. They thought it looked like black peppercorns, so they named it Jamaican Pepper or Pimento, from the Spanish word "Pimenta" which means pepper.

The English named it "Allspice" because it is said to have the aroma of many spices including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pepper and juniper berries. There were several attempts to grow allspice in Europe, but the transplanted trees never produced much fruit.

It is believed that the West got its first taste of cardamom when Alexander the Great brought it back from India. It was used widely in Europe to treat digestive problems.

In Asia and Africa, cardamom has been used to flavor food for centuries and has also been used as an aphrodisiac. It is a very important part of Indian and Arabic cuisine.

Cardamom is an important ingredient in coffee in many cultures. For Arabic coffee, seeds are ground and added to coffee grounds before brewing, or pods are steeped in the coffee itself. In Bedouin traditioni, cardamom pods are placed in the spout of the coffee pot so just the right amount of cardamom flavor is added as the coffee is being poured. In Ethiopia, coffee beans are roasted together with cardamom seeds and other spices immediately before the coffee is prepared. Alli of these are parts of important hospitality traditions within their cultures.