Physicians of Myddfai

I went on an outing to the National Botanic Garden of Wales yesterday. I’ve often thought about visiting just to walk around the gardens, herb beds and the exhibitions. So as I had another reason to go there I arrived early and spent some time exploring the place. I had heard that they had an exhibition about the Physicians of Myddfai and was keen to see that too. The exhibition is really a mock-up of an old apothecaries shop with examples of old containers, scales and instruments for making ointments and powders from herbs. This is in a building next to the herb beds, not at their best at this time of year, though the autumn colours in the woodland and across the gardens more than made up for this.

The Physicians of Myddfai, according to legend, were descendants of a fairy from a nearby lake, who married a mortal and taught her children the secrets of herbs and their uses. The remedies used by the Physicians were written down in a medieval manuscript in Welsh. This was published with a translation in the 19th century and I was able to buy a paperback reproduction of it. I’m told some things in the book are later than the medieval remedies in the manuscript, but a lot of it is genuine and would have come from an older oral tradition, which could go back to the druids.

It’s wonderful that the Garden commemorates this tradition alongside its serious scientific work on botany. It’s part of the Garden that is set up as a tourist attraction but it’s also part of the Welsh heritage that this herbal tradition exists, carried on by the cunning men and wise women for centuries and now officially recognized by the National Botanic Garden. I’m studying these remedies to see what use I can make of them and what use my ancestors made of the herbs that grow in the woods and hedges of our land.