The healing powers and household uses of heather
Beautiful Botanicals by Joanne Howdle
Calluna vulgaris, or Fraoch in Gaelic, is the iconic Scottish heather that covers hillsides and puts on an incredible display in the autumn.
Heather is a perennial shrub which grows to about 60 centimetres high with tiny, triangular-shaped, scale-like leaves. The flowers or “tops” of this botanical are small, at 0.5cm across. Heather tops form in spikes and range in colour from pink to deep purple. Heather provides year-round ground cover and food for many forms of wildlife. Birds eat the ripe seeds, whilst many mammals graze the young shoots. Bees love the nectar and from it make dark, delicious heather honey.
As well as being beloved of beekeepers, heather has a very significant place in our domestic past. Calluna vulgaris is also known as “ling” heather, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lig – meaning “fire”, as heather was often used in the past to make firelighters. Another past use for heather can be found in the genus name Calluna, derived from the Greek word kalluno – literally “to cleanse”. This is an appropriate name as bunches of heather used to be tied together to form brushes, brooms and pot scrubbers. In the Highlands it was used as animal bedding and to make baskets, ropes, and mattresses. Ropes for holding down thatch, for securing animals and boats, and for many other purposes around the farm or croft were all home-made until the late 19th century, and heather was one of the most frequently used materials. In fact, the remains of heather ropes have been found at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae on Orkney, inhabited from circa 3200-2200BC.
Of a winter evening, Highlanders used to carve heather roots to fashion knife handles for their dirks. In the summer heather was used to dye clothing and household textiles yellow, deep orange and green. The abundance of heather in the Highlands also made it valuable as a tanning agent for leather. In traditional medicine a bath of heather tops was a remedy to ease rheumatic pain. The antiseptic and diuretic properties of heather also helped with pain associated with arthritis, gout and nephritis. Heather tea served with honey was also used as a sedative and to treat cases of cystitis, urethritis and to break up kidney stones.
The culinary uses of heather are many. Ice cream drizzled with heather honey makes a delightful dessert while fresh or dried heather tops sprinkled on roast meats, poultry and game give off the hillside aroma of the moorland. Heather tops were used to make the favourite moorland tea of Robert Burns (January 25, 1759- July 21, 1796) while the people whom we call Picts brewed heather ale. The Picts were the dominant culture in much of Scotland from the 5th-9th centuries AD. According to legend, when Viking invaders arrived in Scotland and began massacring the Picts, the last surviving Pict preferred to plunge to his death over a cliff rather than trade the secret of making heather ale for his life. The brewing of heather ale is a craft that has recently been revived in Scotland with an excellent, commercially-produced ale called Fraoch. In gin manufacture, heather tops impart subtly perfumed yet delicate aromatic floral notes to the spirit, giving it a uniquely Scottish flavour.
- Joanne Howdle is tour and events co-ordinator at the multi-award-winning Dunnet Bay Distillers Ltd.
