Literature, Poetry and Mythology
The Greek physician Dioscorides (c.40-90 CE) recommended the herb. The two "fathers" of herbalism, Gerard and Culpeper, also recommended the herb.
The poet John Clare had a more positive opinion of the plant, as revealed in this poem of 1831:
- Ragwort thou humble flower with tattered leaves
- I love to see thee come & litter gold...
- Thy waste of shining blossoms richly shields
- The sun tanned sward in splendid hues that burn
- So bright & glaring that the very light
- Of the rich sunshine doth to paleness turn
- & seems but very shadows in thy sight.
Josephine Kermode (1852–1937) wrote the following poem about the Cushag.
"The Cushag"
- Now, the Cushag, we know,
- Must never grow,
- Where the farmer's work is done.
- But along the rills,
- In the heart of the hills,
- The Cushag may shine like the sun.
- Where the golden flowers,
- Have fairy powers,
- To gladden our hearts with their grace.
- And in Vannin Veg Veen,
- In the valleys green,
- The Cushags have still a place.
(Vannin Veg Veen is Manx for dear little Isle of Man)
Donald Macalastair of Druim-a-ghinnir on the Isle of Arran told a story of the fairies journeying to Ireland. The ragwort was their transport and every one of them picked a plant, sat astride and arrived in Ireland in an instant.
Read more about this topic: Jacobaea Vulgaris
Famous quotes containing the words poetry and/or mythology:
“Love’s the only thing I’ve thought of or read about since I was knee-high. That’s what I always dreamed of, of meeting somebody and falling in love. And when that remarkable thing happened, I was going to recite poetry to her for hours about how her heart’s an angel’s wing and her hair the strings of a heavenly harp. Instead I got drunk and hollered at her and called her a harpy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America; neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, that I have seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)