Sweet Gale

Description

In some lore maintained up until today, Sweet Gale was considered very useful for helping stimulate your dream life, or to obtain lucid dreaming.

Also known as Bog Myrtle it is called the Greek Mursine because of a young maiden of Athens names Myrsine, who was so beautiful all the lusty lads or brave young men of Athens tenderly loved her, as well as the goddess Pallas or Minerva, who willed her to be always present at tourney, and the tilts, running, vaulting, and other such activities and exercises. After the games, Myrsine was to be the judge and award the garland or crown of honor to the winner. They were so pleased with her judgment that they killed her. As soon as the goddess Minerva found out about it, she caused the sweet myrtle to spring up, and called it Myrsine to honor and in memory of the sweet maiden.

Many popular names link gale to myrtle, often with ad­jectives re­ferring to its habitat or geo­graphical distri­bution. The first is exempli­fied by German Sumpf­myrte swamp-myrtle or English bog myrtle; examples for the latter are Russian datski mirt [датский мирт] Danish myrtle and the two Spanish names mirto holandés Dutch myrtle and mirto de Brabante which al­ludes to the province Brabant in Belgium. All these regions are known for oligo­trophic coastal plains, where gale thrives (or at least did so in the past).