This sachet of wildcrafted wood betony in dried herb form comes in a burlap and gauze bag tied with a ribbon in Zoe’s favorite color, purple.
Betony was a beloved cure-all in the Middle Ages, named in Hildegard von Bingen’s medical text Physica as a remedy for nightmares and other ills.
Keep on your shelf as a lore-friendly memento, burn as incense, or brew as a tea using 1 to 2 tsp per 8 oz of water.
Lio smiled to himself. What would Cassia think if she knew she was a hero in a story? “One night, the Brave Gardener learned that the children hiding in the temple were having bad dreams, and they were very frightened. She wanted to make them feel safe. So she decided to harvest good plants from her garden that would help the children. She cut beautiful purple betony flowers and fragrant green betony leaves and bound them together in cloths.”
Lio sprouted a garland of betony about Cassia’s image. A square of cloth fluttered to her, and at a motion from her hand, needle and thread obeyed her and sewed the scrap of fabric into the charm Zoe wore at her neck. Despite Cassia’s protests about her awful sewing skills, he made the work of her hands into art, her labor into magic, for it had always seemed to him like nothing less.
– from BLOOD SOLACE
