Poor Wise-Woman / Healer
Brief info
Meet an old woman whose life changed completely after losing her merchant-class husband, brothers and sons in the war. Hear how her home and place in society depended on the men in her life, and learn what it had been like… and how now, without them, she’s been forced to live close to the land to survive.
Hear how she uses the skills learned as a young woman in her mother’s still room: Making healing herbal cures for the local women, and acting as a midwife.
Listen to how she runs the risks of being caught and tried as a witch, because of her seemingly ‘magical’ abilities with herbs, and fearsome appearance, and how she is wrongly accused by her neighbours out of jealousy, fear, or spite. Hear stories of actual witches like Isobel Gowdie, in nearby Auldearn.
Activities: Learn how headaches and aching joints were treated with sweet-smelling herbs, and willow bark. Make a charm/pomander for yourself, to ward off the evil smells of the filthy 17th century (or medieval) streets, using lavender, sage, mint, thyme, etc, supplied.
Props/costumes/equipment: Replica clothing and all props as supplied by re-enactor: Torn/heavily mended dress(es), dirty head covering, ragged aprons. Dirty face, hands, blackened teeth. Bare feet, or broken shoes, as appropriate to site. Canvas lean-to type shelter, with old woollen blankets draped over as a rough ‘dwelling place’. (if pegs are allowed, I can use my separate fly/awning off my small tent). Dried herbs in bowls for display, and MoP use in activity. Iron cauldron, tripod and ‘fire’ (just logs), for ‘cooking’. Wooden bowl, plate, wooden ‘cooking’ spoon, and horn spoon for eating. Display of seasonal scavenged foodstuffs she would have had available to her, such as oats, berries, apples, perhaps fish of some sort (fake?), or seaweed, if site-appropriate. A heel of a stale bread loaf and a rind of cheese.
Materials for activity: Summer/Autumn: Lavender seeds, and various herbs (as above) for making small pomanders against bad smells, or charms. Squares of cheesecloth to hold them. Yarn to tie cheesecloth into a small ball. Lavender stalks for lavender ‘wands’. Wheat stalks/straw for corn dollies / harvest good luck charms.
For visitors to take away: Printed instructions, to ‘make your own’ lavender wand, or corn dolly. Printed lists of healing properties of different herbs, to ‘make your own’ pomanders (at home.)
