Beyond the Herbwife, part I

Some notes from my presentation at Darkover, "Beyond the Herb-wife: Feminism and the Fantasy Herbalist."

I started out with a disclaimer:
"I've been an herbalist, studying herbs and their history for over 25 years. I'm also a feminist and a pagan. But more than that, I'm a librarian. And if you know librarians, you know that they like fantasy, they like fiction, and they like non-fiction-- but they like the fiction and the non-fiction on separate shelves."

"We're going to be talking about the stereotype of the herbalist/healer/midwife in fantasy, and in history, and in feminist historiography. In the course of that, we're going to be taking on some foundational mythologies of fantasy, of women's studies, and of herbalism. I'm hoping I won't offend anyone, but please feel free to say something, make a comment or a question, if you want. If anyone is so offended they feel they have to leave, that's fine; I'll understand."

I then read out the definitions of herbwoman and herbs from Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland to show the stereotype.

In which Springer and Kramer Fail to Get the Joke

Something I quoted in my "Beyond the Herb-Wife" presentation, about the certain witchcraft-related beliefs, from the MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird's nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report? It is to be said that it is all done by devil's work and illusion, for the senses of those who see them are deluded in the way we have said. For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch to ask her to restore it to him. She told the afflicted man to climb a certain tree, and that he might take which he liked out of the nest in which there were several members. And when he tried to take a big one, the witch said: You must not take that one; adding, because it belongs to a parish priest.

http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/part_II/mm02a07a.html

Moravian's Undergraduate Conference in Medieval/early Modern Studies

Stumbled across this one on the Web-- it's this Saturday and the registration deadline is Nov. 27:
http://www.moravian.edu/medieval/program.html

Hm... interesting note on the "Natural Trumpet" performance.
Since it's free, I've signed up to go.

There's also a Sephardic Music performance at 4:30 pm, $5. I'm considering going to that.