Special Healings

'Wolf Repellent' is not exactly a healing, but as the healing properties of the plants are mentioned, I put it in here.

Wolf Repellent
PP 2, 21-22	Nearby was a horseradish plant with small white flowers clustered in a bunch on stems with small narrow leaves, and lower down, long, pointed, shiny dark green leaves, growing up from the ground. The root would be stout and rather long with a pungent aroma and a burning hot taste. In very small quantities, it was an interesting flavor with meats, but Ayla was more intrigued with its medicinal use as a stimulant for the stomach, and for passing water, and as an application to // sore and swollen joints. She wondered if she should stop to collect some, and then decided that she probably shouldn't take the time. (...) In her offhand perusal of the local vegetation she noted a spiny bush that she knew was the variety of wormwood with the bitter taste and strong camphor smell, not an insect repellent, she thought, but it had its uses. Nearby were cranesbills, wild geraniums with leaves of many teeth and five-petaled reddish-pink flowers, that grew into fruits that resembled the bills of cranes. The dried and powdered leaves helped stop bleeding and heal wounds; made into a tea it healed mouth sores and rashes; and the roots were good for runny stools and other stomach problems. It tasted bitter and sharp, but was gentle enough for children and old people.
PP 2, 23	She quickly reached for her digging stick and started breaking up the ground around the bitter-tasting wormwood with the strong smell of camphor, and then the sharp, astringent, but relatively harmless geranium. (...) going next after the long, thick horseradish root with the burning hot taste. "I think I know a way to keep him away from our things," Ayla said, pointing at the young canine playfully gnawing on what was left of her leather camp shoe. "I'm going to make 'Wolf-repellent'."
PP 4, 52	While the food was cooking, she sorted through the herbs she gathered for "Wolf repellent" (...). She mashed up some of the horseradish root in a bit of broth for their meal, then began mashing the rest of the hot root and bruising the other harsh, sharp, strong-smelling herbs she had gathered that morning, trying to develop the most noxious combination of the plants that she could imagine. She thought the hot horseradish would be the most effective, but the strong camphor smell of the artemisia could be very helpful, too.

	Abbreviations	Editions
CB	The Clan of the Cave Bear	The page numbers refer to the hardcover editions by Crown Publishers, Inc, New York 1980, 1982, 1985, 1990. Book 1-3 are the Special Collector's Edition, I don't know if the page numbers differ from those of the 'normal' hardcover editions.
VH	The Valley of Horses
MH	The Mammoth Hunters
PP	The Plains of Passage
(...)	omission	Copyright
...	original in text	All book quotes: © Copyright Jean M. Auel The format and text contents of this site are the property of the author
MGMH	'A Modern Herbal', by Mrs. M. Grieve

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