Browse:Basil (Volume 1, entries 1116)
Basil
Volume 1, entries 1116. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → CURE AND PROTECTION. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1116
You get bazley. You take this bazley and you boil it. (You mean this vaseline out of a bottle?) No, bazley - it grows like a - smells sweet. (Basil?) Basil - sweet basil, they call it.
(Is it a flower?) [I still was not too certain.]
It's a leaf - it grows - you plant it - you gets the bazley seeds and you plant it, and it grows and it smells nice and is good around the place. Now, you take that bazley and you take some of those leaves and you boil 'em. And you take that water and you get you a handkerchief and, for instance, put it in a bowl with fust a little - that little water you boiled it in - and take it and do all this [demonstrates].
(Just wipe or wash yourself down.)
Bathe yourself with that - bathe yourself with that for nine mornings and they can't do you no harm.
(This sweet basil - is that called sweet basil?)
Basil - you buy it at the seed store and you plant it.
(Is this a kind of a flower?)
It comes up like it has a little flowers on it when it's going to seed.
(What color are those flowers?)
Little white flowers. [Good.]
(White flowers.)
And sweet smell all over - you can just put your hand over it like that and smell it - nice basil, sweet basil.
(Now, after you bathe that way, then what?)
Just throw that water out for nine mornings and they can't do you no harm.
(Just throw that water any place?)
Any place.