It is no secret that I have a particular interest in the history of the early modern period in England, which has the fascinating – to me, at least – intersection of old herbalist practices, folk healing, and alchemy with what were the beginnings of what became modern medicine, of folk understandings of the natural world with natural philosophy and later natural history.
“I hadn’t had my daily dose of lurking frogs and chirruping goldfinch flocks for so long now. I hadn’t sat on a bank of moss and grounded my energy into the earth. Instead of wildflower meadows, my dreams were often preoccupied with train timetables and unsaved Word documents. Where had all the wildlife gone from my life?” So writes Jennifer Lane very early in her new book “The Wheel.”