alchemy
-
Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) is a fascinating and infamous medieval herb! You may have heard of it through Harry Potter these days, but it is real and had some strange tales attached to it. Here are some interesting facts about mandrake: Magical and Superstitious Uses Protection and good fortune: Mandrake was believed to offer protection and…
-
When we think of alchemy and alchemists, we tend to categorise them as men. But no. There were women alchemists as well, as I discovered when I came upon this article which lists ten such women through history. One of the ten caught my eye. She lived in the reign of Elizabeth I, who was…
-
If Becket was a turbulent priest, Roger Bacon was a turbulent scholar, philosopher, scientist and theologian. According to this article he was “….a 13th-century scholar whose contributions to science, philosophy, theology, and linguistics challenged traditional ways of thinking and paved the way for new ideas and advancements….” Well, his activities were that all right, and…
-
Before you read the following (from The Rise of Alchemy in the Fourteenth Century by Jonathan Hughes) you should know that I have taken the liberty of breaking it up into paragraphs – in the book the extract is from one long, rather impenetrable paragraph. Otherwise the punctuation is original. “….One of the most…
-
It’s said that green is the colour of the Devil; it’s also my favourite colour, so I don’t know what that says about me. All I know is that when I was growing up, green was almost always declared to be unlucky. In my teens, I was invited to be a bridesmaid for a…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 