Beyond the Herbwife, Part II

So, the herbalist of fantasy has some standard attributes:

• Exclusively female
  
• Generally lives alone, in the woods or at the edge of the town
  
• Raises, compounds and dispenses her own medications
  
• Medications are uncannily reliable.
  
• Respected and/or feared by the community
  
• Some sort of tension or conflict with 'the authorities,' whether church or otherwise
  
• Often practices 'older'/pagan religion; always very close to nature
  
• Often a witch or other magic-worker.
  
• Makes a living from her herbalism/curing
  
• Strong sense of responsibility for her patients
  

The first two examples in fantasy literature I gave, because they really outstanding ones:

• Keisha, in the second and third books of Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon's Owl Mage trilogy, Owlsight and Owlknight. Keisha is a young woman who has just moved out of her parents house into a comfortable cottage provided for her because she is the village healer. She grows, compounds and dispenses her own herbal remedies, as well as trading for them; she is paid for her healing by a sort of barter-salary arrangement where food and other things are provided for her use. She is aware of the medical basis for her treatments, and she is able to do some magical healing. She won't leave her village to go to a far-off healer's college because that would leave her village without a local healer. And yes, she later comes into conflict with authorities over a healing intervention.
  
• Juniper, in Monica Furlong's Wise Child, who is a practitioner of an earth religion, who cures by both herbal and magical means, who is a lot more educated and tolerant than her Christian neighbors. She lives on a hill outside the village, and is feared but respected by the villagers, and in conflict with the Christian priest. [Curiously, though the story seems to be set around the turn of the first millenium AD in Britain, a Church Inquisitor makes a late appearance; the Inquisition was organized in the 13th century.]