# Herbs and plants



## TheokinsJ (May 28, 2013)

In my WIP, set in a cold-scandinavian climate in the early ninth century AD, my main character takes an arrow to the knee (quite literally) and needs healing. Now- not knowing much about medieval medicine I presumed that to heal the would and clear it of infection, maggots would eat the dead flesh and then (I am guessing?) the wound would have been patched with a bandage of herbs or something to sterilise it. Basically I'm wondering what herbs and plants used for medicinal purposes grow in cold climates in europe?


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## ALB2012 (Jun 2, 2013)

Gardening in Cold Climates: Perennial Herbs for Cold Climates
Medicinal and Magical Herbs of Medieval Europe
BBC - h2g2 - Herbs in European History - A3420497
Scabious might work too. 
I used Culpepers complete herbal. that says Adders-tongue, bifoil, primrose, burnet, moonwort for wounds but I can't comment on whether they would grow in Scandanavia at that time. As Culpeper was 17th Century I think it might not be that useful.

However that said you need to think about the following questions - 1) is there a healer there/someone who WOULD know what to do. 
2) what do they have with them?
3) How deep is the wound?

What is more likely is - remove the arrow (and hope he doesn't bleed to death), caurterise the wound, use honey and maybe herbs and bind it. Oh and hope


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## Butterfly (Jun 2, 2013)

I found some poultice recipes...

Some Poultice Recipes Recipe


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## ALB2012 (Jun 3, 2013)

Excellent. Looks like your chappy will live.


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## skip.knox (Jun 3, 2013)

I did a quick search on "medicinal plants in norway" and got a wide variety, but just on the first page was this:
Cosmo's Garden: Bergen, Norway: The Leprosy Museum and The Botanical Garden

I think if you invested an hour or so, you'd find what you needed.  I chose Norway over Scandinavia because of modern geopolitical prejudices; that is, you'll get more hits by using the modern country names, so check Sweden and Finland and Denmark, too.


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