vii: Foraging Through Folklore
Balms and bees Ella Leith I love that ‘balm’ rhymes with ‘calm’. It feels extremely appropriate, although I know it’s just a coincidence. From ‘basme’— the ‘oily, resinous aromatic substance exuding naturally from shrubs of the genus Commiphora’ (Myrrh) —since the late 1300s, the term has been applied to ‘any aromatic preparation used in healing wounds or soothing pain, or as a perfume or in anointing’ (Etymonline). Through this use, the term ‘balm’ extends to cover various fragrant garden herbs which were felt to have a ‘healing or soothing influence’ (ibid.); one such is Melissa officinalis, a highly scented member of the Lamiaceae (Mint) family. Most commonly known as Lemon Balm, its other by-names include Heart’s Delight, Balm Mint, English Balm (I’m not sure why, since it is native to Southern Europe and now naturalised across the world), Garden Balm, Sweet Balm, Bee Balm (a byname it shares with Monarda didyma) and Honey Plant. These last names allude to its longstanding reputation as an attractor of bees; indeed, its binomial Melissa, is Greek for honeybee. Back in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder wrote that planting Lemon Balm near beehives would encourage bees to return and settle there, and the sixteenthcentury botanist John Gerard also claimed that rubbing its leaves on a hive ‘causeth the Bees to keep together and causeth others to come unto them’ (Grieve, 1931:76). Like honey,
Lemon Balm has been used medically (hence the officinalis in its name) and was ‘believed to remedy so many different conditions that it was once considered “an herbal cure-all”’ (HAS, 2007:32). So, it seems fitting to be writing this from Malta, whose name is also believed to derive from the Greek for honey— ‘meli’ —and where the Knights Hospitaler prepared medicines using honey collected from still-standing Roman beehives and herbs grown in the gardens of their public hospitals. Whether Lemon Balm was one of these herbs, alas I do not know, but I’d place a wager on it. What was the extent of Lemon Balm’s ‘cure-all’ properties, then? Hieronymus Brunschwig wrote in his 1500 Book of Distillation that Lemon Balm caused those driven to anger to be ‘mery and refressht again’ as well as contributing to ‘sharp wytte’ and ‘good memory’ (O'Connor et al. 1984:15); similarly, in 1679 John Evelyn claimed that ‘balm is sovereign for the brain [and] strengthening the memory’ (Ody 1993:78). Improved longevity also seems to be a significant feature of Lemon Balm lore: John Hussey, of Sydenham, who lived to the age of 116, breakfasted for fifty years on Balm tea sweetened with honey, and herb teas were the usual
