The Herbarium

By Kathy Sharp

Kathy Sharp delights us in her first of her quirky tales centred around the plants found in and around the Jurassic coast, and Dorset woodlands. Some very odd people begin to gather at the Hartstongue Inn, deep in the forest. But who are they? Why are they there? And what secrets do they have to hide? The Herbarium reveals its unique my

• Language: English
• Publisher: Veneficia Publications
• Release date: Oct 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781914071331

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the prior permission of the publisher.

Text & Illustrations © Kathy Sharp 2019

VENEFICIA PUBLICATIONS UK

Edited by Veneficia Publications & Fi Woods

Veneficiapublications.com

Typesetting © Veneficia Publications UK October 2020

A Magical Tale

Written & Illustrated

by

Kathy Sharp

Contents Part One

The Midsummer Summons      1

The Wise Woman’s Grand-daughter      3

The Witch and the Well      5

A Midsummer Murmur      7

The Philosophical Doctor      9

The Lady of the Moon      12

The Bearded Lady      14

The Unlucky Man      16

The Ragged Man      18

The Man who Cured a King      22

A Man of Letters      24

The Quicksilver Man      26

The Man Under the Water      28

The Defiler      31

Peddlers, Quacks and Ne’er-do-wells      33

The Midsummer Summons

At the Hartstongue Inn

Inspired by the hartstongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium), a plant of woodland banks and old walls.

The rotting thatch contained more moss and fern than reed. In places it had begun to detach itself and was heading earthwards, stealthily, as if the straw might sprout legs and run away back to the marsh the moment it touched the ground. The Hartstongue Inn lay all alone, deep in the forest on an old road that was seldom used nowadays. Inside, the bartender was pretty mossy too, as if the escaping thatch had infected him from the top down. Even his hair was green or was it merely a trick of the light? Maybe, the pale fern shaded the gaps in the roof and swathed everything within in a green filter. Even the increasingly rare customers took on a verdant look while they were inside – a look they carried with them when they left. It wasn’t hard to imagine the regulars having greened over on the settle and putting down roots, becoming permanent grown-in fixtures. Would the draped, dry hop-bines, there as a decoration, not come back to life and grow all over again? Would the oaken counter, not polished for many years, sprout buds? Perhaps … and perhaps the Hartstongue Inn, one day, would be completely alive, and return to the forest whose clearing it had once so boldly stolen. Thus, does nature reclaim her own, all in good time.

But this is all by-the-by because something was happening at the Hartstongue Inn. If the barman had been paying attention that spring, which he wasn’t, he might have observed the wise woman tucking a little scroll of birch bark into a cranny in the wall. Had he retrieved it and unrolled it, which he didn’t, he would have found its underside covered in mysterious symbols. They would have meant nothing to him. But for the fortunate few, including you, dear reader, they would have transmitted a message. ‘Come to the Hartstongue Inn, or thereabouts,’ they said. ‘St John’s Day, or thereabouts.’ The bark scroll fell to pieces unmolested, and its magical message was delivered into the hearts of those who needed to hear it. And that was` how the spell was cast to summon the Herbarium.

The Wise Woman’s Granddaughter

May