hivalrous days embroidered on the scarves which
they presented to their knights the device of a bee hovering about a
spray of Thyme, as teaching the union of the amiable and the active.

Horace has said concerning Wild Thyme:--

"Impune tutum per nemus arbutos
Quaerunt latentes, et thyma deviae
Olentis uxores mariti."

Wild Thyme is subject to variations in the size and colour of its
flowers, as well as in the habits of the varieties.

This wild Thyme bears also the appellation, "Mother of Thyme,"
which should be "Mother Thyme," in allusion to its medicinal
influence on the womb, an organ which the older writers always
termed the "Mother." Isidore tells that the wild Thyme was called
in Latin, _Matris animula, quod menstrua movet_. Platearius
says of it: _Serpyllum matricem comfortat et mundificat. Mulieres
Saliternitanoe hoc fomento multum utuntur_.

Dr. Neovius writes enthusiastically in a Finnish Journal on the
virtues of common Thyme in combating whooping cough. He has
found that if given _fresh_, from an ounce and a half to six ounces a
day, mixed [562] with a little syrup, regularly for some weeks, it is
practically a specific. If taken from the first, the symptoms vanish in
two or three days, and in a fortnight the disease is expelled. The
simplicity, harmlessness, and cheapness of this remedy are great
supporters of its claims.

Other titles of the herb are Pulial mountain, and creeping Thyme. It
is anti-spasmodic, and good for nervous or hysterical headaches, for
flatulence, and the headache which follows inebriation. The infusion
may be profitably applied for healing skin eruptions of various
characters.

Virgil mentions (in _Eclogue_ xi., lines 10, 11) the restorative value
of Thyme against fatigue:--

"Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus oestu
Allia, Serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes."

Or,

"Thestlis for mowers tired with parching heat
Garlic and Thyme, strong smelling herbs, doth beat."

Tournefort writes: "A conserve made from the flowers and leaves of
wild Thyme (_Serpyllum_) relieves those troubled with the falling
sickness, whilst the distilled oil promotes the monthly flow in
women."

The delicious flavour of the noted honey of Hymettus was said to be
derived from the wild Thyme there visited by the bees. Likewise the
flesh of sheep fed on pasturage where the wild Thyme grows freely
has been said to gain a delicate flavour and taste from this