Chapter 32.. ¶ Another Most Excellent Receite, to Cure All Manner of Wounds,

¶ Another most excellent receite, to cure all manner of wounds, impostumes, vlcers, or Fistulaes.

Take the iuyce of the Onion called Scilla, take Hellybor, and Bitumen Iudaicum, mingle these together, and incorporate them in manner of a plaister. The Macedonians and Gelonians to this receit adde the opening of a vaine in the sole of the foote of a beast, and then to giue him to drinke milke and horses blood mingled together, which cureth all inward impostumes, surfeits or poysons, and to the outward griefe to apply the plaister, which was neuer knowne to be frustrate.

=66.= 27. I. R. has--and it is better to weane thy Calues at grasse then at hard meate, if they went to grasse before.

=68.= Here I. R. introduces a long flourish about the nobleness of horses, instancing the fabulous brood born to Neptune and Ceres (who transformed herself into a mare), the transformation of Saturn into a horse, and the like.

22. I. R. has--and that shall yee knowe by diuers signes, as by her riding of other Horses, by her flinging about the fieldes, or lastly by her priuie part, for that will twirle open, and shut againe, many times in an houre.

37. lx.] fortie (by misreading lx. as xl.).

63-79. I. R. varies this, and has--put to your white Mares a daple-gray Horse, so shall he gette all daples; to your bright bay mares a blacke bay horse, and so shall you gette all broune bayes; and to your blacke Mares, a blacke Horse, so he haue white feet, white ratch, and white feather; so shall he gette well-marked blacke Colts. But for the Carte it much matters not for colours, but for knowledge sake know that the broune bay, the daple-gray, the bright bay, and the white lyard, are the best colours; all other colours haue defects and are imperfect: of markes one white foote, a white starre, a white snyp, or a white rache is good: and an Ostrige feather in any place where the horse cannot see it, is the best of all the markes that can be for a horse. And thus much for horses or mares to be chosen or vsed.

=70.= 3. and hygh grasse] and much fogge.

8. flasshes] and flagges.

9. bunnes] bands (wrongly).

32. aftermath] after-croppe.

33. gyrre, &c.] gyre, and to scoure so much that hee wil hardly endure to labour.

39. horse] horses. But horse is the true old plural form, the sb. being neuter; A.S. hors, pl. hors. Nevertheless, Fitzherbert himself has horses in the line following.

42. put] strike and hurte.

=73.= 1. rase or a ball] starre. A ball is a streak; hence the mod. E. bald, M.E. ball-ed. See bald in my Etym. Dict.

=74.= 2. to be styffe-docked] a stiffe docke or stearne of his taile.

=77.= 3. syde-tailed; syde means ‘long.’

=78.= 2. cressed] crested. And probably cressed is a mere misprint.

5. holowe-foted] hollow-hooued.

=79.= 7. chowynge] chewing.

=80.= I. R. expands this chapter and the succeeding chapters so much that it would take up too much space to print all his additions. He gives recipes for the cure of the various diseases, and inserts chapters ‘Of the head-ach or meagrum,’ ‘Of the staggers,’ and ‘Of the Vines.’ I can only undertake to give here a few notes to illustrate Fitzherbert’s text.

=83.= I. R. has--The mourning of the tongue most commonly called the Canker.

=86, 87.= I. R. considers these two diseases together, and discourses of them at length, saying that he has ‘cured many very sore spent.’

=88.= I. R. explains ‘Strangulion’ as appearing ‘in a swelling impostume as bigge as a mans fist, iust betweene a horses chaules.’

=89-113.= I. R. omits nearly all these sections, excepting 91 (which agrees with his ‘Chapter 42. Of the Vines’) and sect. 109 (which is his Chapter 54).

=109.= I. R. has the rubric--‘Of enterfayring’; and says--‘Enterfairing is a griefe that commeth sometimes by ill shooing, and sometimes naturally, when a Horse trots so narrow that he hewes [knocks] one legge vpon another.’ It is what we now call ‘over-stepping.’ The derivation is from the French form of Lat. inter-ferire; and it is from this term in farriery that we have taken the mod. E. interfere.

=116.= I. R. omits this section.

=118.= I. R. introduces here ‘Chapter 55. How to make the pouder of honey and lime.’

=119.= 2, 6. The French lines are in doggerel rime, and the English translations seem also to be meant for verse, such as it is. The omission of the words or iourneye (in l. 8) would improve the scansion.

8. or nyght, i.e. ere night. Altered by I. R. to out-right.

=120.= 4. tame] lame (!); an ominous mistake, for which the compositor should have the credit.

=121.= 4. We may feel sure that this sayinge was originally in verse. Perhaps it ran thus:

“He that hath sheep, and swyne, and hyue, Slepe he, wake he, he maye thryue.”

Or we might write been (Chaucer’s plural of bee), riming with theen, the usual M. E. word for ‘thrive.’

9. Hogges. As to the exact sense of this word, see the note on it in the ‘Corrections and Additions’ to the larger edition of my Etymological Dictionary.

=122.= 38. sclatte] slate.

=124.= Here I. R. begins his third book, relating to timber and distillations.

12. Midsummer-moon is an old phrase; it occurs in the second line of the prologue to the Plowman’s Tale, which is inserted in some editions of Chaucer, though really written by the anonymous author of the Plowman’s Crede.

33. muldes a spade-graffe depe] mould with a spade a foot deepe.

35. peruse] doo still.

39. I. R. adds--or els beeing drowned, not to prosper.

=125.= 4. fyue fote brod, &c.] fiue foote broad, then it would be set with three chesses or rowes one aboue another, but of what depth or breadth soeuer, it would be double sette, &c.

5. hedge] dead hedge.

=126.= 2. ellore] Elder (the later form).

6. edderynge] wood; see the glossary. So, in l. 7, I. R. translates eddered by bounde; and again in l. 16, he alters edderinges to byndings.

9. trouse] brouse (as above); see 38. 3.

=127.= 4. the more halue] more then halfe. But the more halfe, i.e. the greater part, is right enough, and the older phrase. In l. 23, it is left unaltered.

8. in processe] vnwares.

15. slaue] stand (clearly not the right word). In l. 32, I. R. has the spelling sleaue. So also in sect. 133, I. 6.

=128.= 21. I. R. omits and bolneth; in l. 29, he alters bolne to rise.

=129.= 10. to leuse] so looseneth.

11. gete] got. But gete is the old form of the pp.; A.S. geten.

=130.= 4. casses] Kasses. I. R. omits or wydes.

5. slauynges] sleanings (sic). The form popeler reminds me that I have heard the large poplar-tree at ‘Hyde-park Corner’ in Cambridge called ‘the popular tree.’ See l. 23.

12, 16. osyerde wethy] Asiere Withy.

=131.= 7. kydde] kid or faggot.

9, 16. brenne] burne.

14. to peruse them] persist.

=132.= 4. I. R. omits ‘and also the yues.’

5. bowe] hewe. But bowe refers to the bending of it before it is cut; the bent piece is called the byghte in the next line. I. R. alters byghte to bough.

18. brede] breadth (which is the later form).

21. xvi.] one and twenty (by misreading xvi. as xxi.).

=133.= 1. gyse] vse of men.

6. slaue] sleaue; and in l. 16.

10. hym] the seller.

11. an] one (which is the meaning intended).

14. ouer] vpper.

=134.= 7. garches] garthes. In ed. 1534, it is plainly garches; but confusion between c and t is extremely common, as they were written nearly alike.

18. a greatte] by great. The two phrases have different senses; a greate means ‘in the lump,’ without cutting or dressing the trees, as appears from the next line. But by great means ‘by wholesale’; which contradicts l. 1.

=136.= 6. graffe] graft (throughout; which is the later form).

10. I. R. omits the narower kyrfe, and; to avoid the word kyrfe.

=137.= 10. pyrre-stocke] Peare-tree stocke.

14. I. R. says--a Crab-tree stocke is good, but the Apple-tree stocke it-selfe is much better.

=138.= 1. lanses] branches.

10. nothynge] any thing.

26. marley] marle.

29. cleauynge] place clouen.

30. for chynynge of the claye] for feare the clay through drines should cleaue or riue.

33. clayenge] cleauing (which is clearly wrong).

36. I. R. adds--And three grafts are enough for any stock whatsoeuer, and sooner they will couer the head then foure, fiue, or sixe.

=139.= 6. tenaunte] tennant.

9. ponch] punch.

10. stop] scope. one syde] other side.

19. clyppe] slip.

20. After growe, I. R. adds--and to fence it close about with some thick-set hedge.

After this section I. R. inserts ‘Chapter 17. Howe to graft by leafe, causing all manner of fruit to grow vpon one tree.’ His method is to insert what we should now call a slip, with a stalk and leaf growing from it.

=140.= 2. scyences] syens. In fact, scyences (= scions-es) is a double plural, and was probably a provincial term, like nesteses or nesses for nests. So also fairies-es is a country name for fairies, which some lexicographers, not understanding, actually write and print as Pharisees!

6. he wyll] you will. This alteration is made wherever the phrase occurs.

8. lyke] like or prosper in any wise.

*** Here I. R. inserts a large portion of his own (or perhaps copied from other sources) without any hint that it is not in his original. The insertion extends from p. 103 to p. 143, and contains the following chapters.