China Bayles' Book of Days: 365 Celebrations of the Mystery, Myth, and Magic of Herbs from the World of Pecan Springs - Brossura

Albert, Susan Wittig

Brossura

ISBN 10: 042520653X ISBN 13: 9780425206539

Casa editrice: Berkley, 2006

Riassunto

A companion volume to the best-selling China Bayles mystery novels featuring the herbalist sleuth presents a collection of facts, recipes, trivia, remedies, lore, and gardening tips for every day of the year, accompanied by essays by the author, clues from China's mysteries, and more. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Susan Wittig Albert grew up on a farm in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. A former professor of English and a university administrator and vice president, she is the author of the China Bayles Mysteries, the Darling Dahlias Mysteries, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Some of her recent titles include Widow’s Tears, Cat’s Claw, The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose, and The Tale of Castle Cottage. She and her husband, Bill, coauthor a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries under the name Robin Paige, which includes such titles as Death at Glamis Castle and Death at Whitechapel.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

AUGUST 31

Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners, florists, and herbalists.

If your garden is doing particularly well this year, you can thank St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardens. If it isn’t—well, perhaps you could ask this helpful saint to lend a hand.

The Tale of St. Fiacre

Fiacre lived in the seventh century. He was raised in an Irish monastery, where he learned to use healing herbs. He wanted to be a hermit, but his skill and knowledge brought people to him, so he went to France in search of solitude, taking up residence in a cave near a spring. He needed a garden (who doesn’t?) so he asked a nearby bishop, St. Faro of Meaux, for land. The bishop gave him as much garden space as he could plow in a day. The next morning, it is said, Fiacre chose his spot and began to walk around it, dragging his spade behind him. Magically, wherever his spade touched, trees toppled, bushes were uprooted, the soil was turned over, and the rocks were plucked out. The local folk, frightened, called it sorcery, but the bishop declared Fiacre’s garden a miracle. (Personally, I suspect that the bishop had some gardening work of his own that needed to be done.) Fiacre’s garden, always in bloom and always beautifully tended, became a place of pilgrimage. His healing herbs were eagerly sought, and his culinary herbs were used to flavor food that was offered to the poor.

To invite blessings to your garden you might purchase a small statue of this gardener’s saint and put it in a quiet corner, where you can enjoy the meditative silence Fiacre sought in his own garden. Surround it with such healing herbs as sage, thyme, mint, fennel, dill, and St. John’s wort, herbs that Fiacre would have known and used.

The growing of the first few herbs is the discovery of a whole new world of garden pleasure and human meaning, but it is when a gardener has tried a few, liked them and been liked by them and would go on that the full adventure begins. –Henry Beston, Herbs and the Earth

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Berkley
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 042520653X
• ISBN 13: 9780425206539
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 400