The wild mountain thyme

AlasNotMeBlog links to posts from a blog about the LOTR... about the healing of Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry. (the book not the movie, which edited out mos of this).

the plant in the film, by the way, looks like the common chickweed, which is used for wounds, can be used to feed pigs (again, in the film), but doesn't have a nice smell.

Others have thought it was a basil or a mint plant, or maybe yarrow or a similar herb.

When I walked the fields in Appalachia, we would find various mints and herbs that grew wild, often because the farmers who had left 100 years earlier had grown them in their gardens.

Yet thyme also comes to mind, since this grows wild in southern climes and is useful for headaches, as is kingsfoil. Since Aragorn had to look hard for it when Frodo was injured, presumably also growing in a lost farm's garden, or in a certain type of habitat, one suspects this might fit the bill easier. In the films, it is a northern weed, but in the book, it is only considered a weed in Gondor.

yet wild thyme is a weed in the British Isles

longer discussion here.

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O the summer time has come
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And wild mountain thyme
Grows around the purple heather.
Will you go, lassie, go?

Chorus
And we'll all go together,
To pull wild mountain thyme,
All around the purple heather.
Will you go, lassie, go?

I will build my love a tower,
By yon clear crystal fountain,
And on it I will pile,
All the flowers of the mountain.
Will you go, lassie, go?

Chorus

I will range through the wilds
And the deep land so dreary
And return with the spoils
To the bower o' my dearie.
Will ye go lassie go ?

Chorus