Given the recipient's name, it was so obvious what I needed to do -- find a medieval MS with yarrow in it and make a page that looked like it could've come from a medicinal. I found a variety of MSs, but liked the best this De Materia Medica image of yarrow from a 10th C Turkish MS.
The text on the left reads:
Achilleos sive yarrow, alias dictam vulgariter gearwe, est herbiferum flos ad solantem spirituum et animorum.
Which translates to:
Achilleos or yarrow, otherwise commonly called gearwe [the Anglo-Saxon name of the plant] is an herbaceous flower for the soothing of spirits.
The right-hand side was intended to read as if it were a translation or gloss of the Latin, but without being a translation:
Yarrowe, otherwise commonly known as John, soothes the spirits of all and is now named a lord of our court.
I'm exceptionally pleased with the calligraphy which I did freehand without even drawing any lines. I feel like I've finally figured out how to write rather than the draw.
© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.
