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3.0
The Witch's Book of Simples
ByPublisher Description
Keep it Simple
A Simple is a philtre derived from a single herb and was an important element among the natural resources of the parish-pump witch, wise-women and cunning-folk. Simples are common kitchen ‘stuff’ that have been handed down through generations of country people in the form of family cures for everyday ailments. Or as William Fernie wrote in his Herbal Simples (1897) The art of Simpling is as old with us as our British hills. It aims at curing common ailments with simple remedies culled from the soil, or got from home resources near at hand.
These were no fancy recipes with magical formulae, and, often given as a tisane, the woman of the household was able to use the remedies to treat common ailments suffered by her family. And, this elementary form of domestic plant medicine can be as simple as a cup of chamomile tea made from flowers picked fresh from our own garden to aid sleep. This was the most elementary way to use medicinal plants since no fancy recipes or scientific acumen was needed. But this element of traditional witchcraft has long been in the shadows
A Simple is a philtre derived from a single herb and was an important element among the natural resources of the parish-pump witch, wise-women and cunning-folk. Simples are common kitchen ‘stuff’ that have been handed down through generations of country people in the form of family cures for everyday ailments. Or as William Fernie wrote in his Herbal Simples (1897) The art of Simpling is as old with us as our British hills. It aims at curing common ailments with simple remedies culled from the soil, or got from home resources near at hand.
These were no fancy recipes with magical formulae, and, often given as a tisane, the woman of the household was able to use the remedies to treat common ailments suffered by her family. And, this elementary form of domestic plant medicine can be as simple as a cup of chamomile tea made from flowers picked fresh from our own garden to aid sleep. This was the most elementary way to use medicinal plants since no fancy recipes or scientific acumen was needed. But this element of traditional witchcraft has long been in the shadows
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Witch's Book of Simples Reviews
3.0
“Such a great book, I truly enjoyed reading through this one. I will definitely want it in my kitchen once published. Organized, layout was well structured, well written & knowledgeable for those who want to explore or those who already love herbs & the magic they have.”
“It's easy to tell the author is very passionate about this subject. Unfortunately, passion does not equal a good reading experience. From the start, the writing is very inaccessible; it is very history heavy and reads like a textbook. The author repeats herself a lot, inputs unnecessary quotes, and jumps from topic to topic in a way that makes no sense. From what you can plant your herbs in, to city foraging, to the history of buttercup, to the definition of an herb with certain medicinal herb uses sprinkled in, all within 5 pages. Despite the title, this book doesn't seem very heavy on modern witchcraft/neo-paganism; it's more about historic folk magic. Another issue I had was the author seemed to have a negative view on modern medicine. In one section she states: "if they [herbs] are combined with the modern penchant for pharmaceutical drugs, there can be potentially fatal consequences. It is actually the pharmaceutical drugs that are dangerous" The 3rd chapter was my favorite as it was a list of herbs with how to make simples their uses, and some background history. This part felt more organized and polished than the rest of the book and makes for great reference. Overall, I would not recommend this to modern witches unless they love academia and history.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.”
“I was pretty disappointed with this book. It read very much like a research paper. I'm sure there was good information buried beneath the haughty tone and the mountain of quotations from other people's works, but this just missed the mark entirely.”
“This is a beginner's guidebook and should be treated as such. The first 2 chapters focuses on the history and controversy surrounding simples that I found to be helpful. One note, the text heavily focuses on European use of simples and casually references Chinese and Egyptian practices (the author uses G***sie when referring to Romanian practices”
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