SC - Re: HERB - Tobacco and other Smoking Herbs

[Gaylin Walli]

At 11:50 AM -0500 1/19/99, Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
>Ok, here's a question for the Herb List, anyone heard of "Tussilinge"?

Which was in response to Jran-Baptiste de Foix's SCA-Cooks comment:
>> I once got to smoke a herb called "Tussilinge" the person who let me
>> smoke it says the Romans smoke it. and this person has done a
>>master's thesis in history about herbal uses in the Antiquity.

Just on a whim, I've looked up some of the etymology of "tussilinge."
No web search results in any more than the Floreligium
commentary on it.

Based on the middle english word "tussillen" and the "linge" of
the name, it could be, on my undereducated guess, Heather or
Calluna vulgaris. Looking up the words "touse," "ling," and
"tussillen" and perhaps "zirzuson" in a real dictionary might
yield better results.

I cannot, however, find any information in my work library that
suggests that the Heather plant was smoked, only that it is an Old
World plant. I'll double-check in Gerard if I can find it when
I go home tonight, but it could just be a dead end. If you're
interested in looking it up yourself, try also looking for "hather"
which was a more common spelling in period (AFAIR) or under
"Eurasian heath." You may want to look under grasses if you have
a choice.

Keep in mind that I'm taking a big WAG on this. I have no idea what
tussilinge is. I'm just curious if I can find any references to
it in my book collection and thought I'd share where I'm going
to look. Isn't the german word for "heather" "heide?"

Don't you just love a good puzzle?



Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm
jasmine at infoengine.com or gwalli at infoengine.com
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