Hovering over a sweet treat

摘要

To avoid enchantment when Merlin's sword was forged, "The metal first he mixt with Medawart" according to the late 16th Century epic poem The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. Meadowsweet was among the most sacred Druid herbs and its fame has spread to modern times with one of our commonest medicines named after it. Aspirin, from the former scientific name Spiraea ulmaria, is a derivative of salicylic acid, isolated from the flowers and commercialised by 1899. There is evidence of meadowsweet in Bronze Age burial sites and herbalists have long used it for headaches and gastric upsets and to "make the heart merrie" (John Gerard).