The Folklore of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
(If anyone doesn't get what the title's referring to, the chorus of "Scarborough Fair", a famous English folk standard, goes thus: "Are you going to Scarborough Fair?/parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme/remember me to one who lives there/she once was a true love of mine." You can listen to the most famous version, by Simon and Garfunkel, here, which I put on loop while writing this post).
This is the herb with the most folklore about it, and for some reason it's mostly extremely dark. Across England it's said to grow slowly because the seed goes to the Devil nine times before breaking the ground, and disturbing it during this time is very bad luck [1], and it should only be planted on Good Friday, the day when the Devil has no power over the soil, lest a member of the sower’s family die [2]. It grows better for wicked men than good, and can only be safely transplanted if dug up in secrecy, and it is variously said to cause fertility or sterility [3]. However, it is said to cure poison. For regional traditions, in the southeast parsley growing in a garden is an omen of a death within a year [4], in Devon transplanting parsley will kill the person doing it or a member of their family [5], a belief which is also held in Warwickshire [6] in the Cotswolds chewing parsley is a cure for rheumatism [7], in Hampshire giving parsley is extremely unlucky [8] and in Lincolnshire growing parsley promotes pregnancy [9].
A plant with a happier reputation, mostly relating to divination. The Universal Fortune Teller, a book of divination popular among the working classes in 19th-century England, includes the following ritual for girls to discover their future husband: three, five or seven girls should go into a garden without anyone else in it, each take a sprig of red sage, go into an empty room, put a stool with a basin of rosewater in the middle and their sprigs in the basin, tie a line across the room and hang a clean inside-out shift (a layer similar to a nightgown, worn to stop corsets chafing) on it, sit in a row on the opposite side of the stool as far apart as possible and stay silent. After midnight the husband will appear, take each girl’s sprig out of the water and sprinkle a little water on the shift [10]. In the Cotswolds, it (along with lavender and rosemary) is said to only grow in houses where the wife is the dominant member of the couple [11], and in Warwickshire this is said exclusively about sage [12]. In Sussex, eating sage leaves and then fasting for nine consecutive mornings cures fever [13].
Another divination plant. A pan-English ritual to have a dream of your future husband is to take a sprig of rosemary and a sprig of thyme on St. Agnes' Eve (20th January), sprinkle them with water three times, place one in each shoe, put the shoes at the end of the bed, and before going to bed recite "St. Agnes, that's to lovers kind, come ease the trouble of my mind" [14]; you can also achieve this by simply placing a sprig of rosemary and a sixpence under the pillow [15]. It should be noted that dreams achieved by this method are not always accurate [16]. For some more pan-English beliefs about it, rosemary used to be white but was turned blue by the Blessed Virgin placing the Christ Child's linens on it, thirty-three-year-old rosemary bushes are the same height as Christ, rosemary amulets protect from assault, lightning, plague, faeries and witches, restore youth and cure gout, nausea and insanity, drinking wine with rosemary twigs dipped in it with your new spouse guarantees a happy marriage [17], and rosemary worn on the body strengthens the memory and gives the wearer success [18]. In Somerset, rosemary was one of the herbs (along with rue, hemlock and rosemary) burnt on May Day to ward off witchcraft [19].
Like parsley, a rather dark plant. In Lancashire, places where murders have been committed smell of thyme [20], which is also the case on Pig Lane in Bishops Canning, Wiltshire. In the same county, thyme is said to be one of the plants used by witches in their spells, and wild thyme boiled in urine with pepper or nitre is a cure for warts [21].
Dee Dee Chainey, 2018, A Treasury of British Folklore: Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe, National Trust Books, p.42
Marc Alexander, 2002, A Companion to the Folklore, Customs and Legends of Britain, Sutton Publishing Ltd., p.211
Katherine Briggs, 1974, The Folklore of the Cotswolds, Batsford, p.119
T. F. Thistleton-Dyer, 1878, English Folklore, Hardwick and Bogue, p.3
Roy Palmer, 1976, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford, p.99
Thistleton-Dyer 1878 pp.3-4
Ethel Rudkin, 1933, “Lincolnshire Folklore”, Folklore, volume 44, number 3, pp.279-295
William Henderson, 1879, Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders, Nichols & Sons, p.103
Roy Palmer, 1976, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford, p.95
John Aubrey, 1684 (1881 reprint), Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p.54
Alexander 2002 pp.236-237
Thistleton-Dyer 1878 p.13
Ronald Hutton, 2002, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford University Press, p.224
Ralph Whitlock, 1976, The Folklore of Wiltshire, Batsford, pp.163-164
