The Stillroom
- The Lost Celtic Remedies
The Celtic Herbalist has resurrected the only surviving collection of pre-Christian European herbal remedies that we now possess. These recipes were almost lost after waves of Christian missionaries came to Britain and deliberately destroyed the culture and religion of the Celts. The Christian monasteries then took over the role of the Ovates, the Druidic physicians.
A few of the Ovate families, however, managed to continue their 1,500 year old practices which used the traditional Celtic remedies. Luckily, a few hundred years later, in the 13th century, the head of one of the then few remaining families of Celtic medical practitioners collected these remedies which had become lost to all but a handful of, by now, Christianised Druidic descendants. He and his family were know as the Physicians of Myddfai (Wales). Rhiwallon of Myddfai collected these recipes and they have been passed down to us in the Red Book of Hergest. A copy of this manuscript is in Jesus College Oxford, and the original is in the British Museum.
Many of these recipes' ingredients we now know to be effective, e.g. willow-bark for warts (salicylic acid is keratolytic). Slight adjustments have been made to some, however, in the light of modern knowledge and to avoid the use of animal products e.g. lard and suet.