Please feel welcome to browse this website for the Herb & Garden Guild of the Kingdom of Lochac within the Society for Creative Anachronism. The Watering Can is the guild symbol.
The main aim of the website is to provide contact information for prospective members on how to contact the guild and sign up to its email list. The site also provides information about the guild, its newsletters, its projects and references for medieval herb and garden lore. Please use the menu to navigate the site.
We start with a garden riddle from the Exeter Riddle Book (originally written in Olde English):-
A strange object caught my eye, used to feed cattle by men of every town; it has many teeth and is useful to men as it scrapes around, its face to the ground. It plunders greedily, searching for plants along the grassy slopes, and brings them home; it always finds those which are not rooted firmly, but leaves the beautiful living flowers behind, quietly standing where they spring from the soil, brightly gleaming, blooming, growing.
News and Updates
This is the new website for the Herb and Garden Guild, and has only just been set up. The old plot can still be found here, but it became so untended that we needed to start with a fresh one. All the content has been transplanted, but there is little new growth. Please give us time to cultivate the content that will bloom here.
The Guild has a Facebook Page, but to be a member of the Guild you need to join the Mailing List. More details on the Contacts page.
Research News
Guild Members occasionally perform research on aspects of medieval life. In doing such research it was discovered the following very pretty quote on Rosemary (also known as Rosmary, Rosmarie, Rosemarie, Rosmarinus, Rosmarine, Romero) has been widely attributed to a 16th Century author then known as Sir Thomas More.
“As for rosemarie, I lett it run alle over my garden walls,
not onlie because my bees love it,
but because ’tis the herb sacred to remembrance and therefore to friendship,
whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language that maketh ye chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and in our buriall grounds.”
This quote was actually written in 1852 by Anne Manning in her fictional novel “The Household of St Thomas More” and so is mis-attributed to Sir Thomas More (rather than being a misquote).
Guild History and Notes
The Herb and Garden Guild Charter was accepted by Their Majesties at Rowany Festival on April 7th 2007 (A.S. XLI) to become a guild within the Kingdom of Lochac. The guild, started by Caristiona nic Beathain and Sigurd Trygrason (sometimes written Sigurd Trygvason, Sigurd Tryggvason, or even Sigurd Trygvarsson), had already existed informally for a number of years within the then Principality of Lochac with its newsletter being produced prior to A.S XXXIII March 2000. The first newsletter is undated and this is the date of the 2nd Herb and Garden Guild Newsletter.
Previous Head Gardeners of the guild have been Caristiona nic Beathain, Sigurd Trygrason, Alessandra Torrigiani d’Arezzo, Brian le faucheeur, Cristoval Gitano, Mael Muire ingen Alpin and Claricia filia Wilelmi dapiferi.
In the guild annual general meeting at Rowany Festival on April 5th 2010 ( (A.S. XLIV) Master Sigurd Trygrason accepted the offer of becoming Patron of the Herb and Garden Guild.
In the guild annual general meeting at Rowany Festival on April 19th 2014 ( (A.S. XLVIII) Mistress Caristiona nic Beathain and Master Sigurd Trygrason were our first members elevated to, respectively, Mistress / Master (Level II Membership) of the Guild by acclaim and the general consensus of the guild.