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Oct. 17th, 2006 02:18 amMy word of the day is 'borax'. Someone commented to me yesterday that she didn't think it was known in the Middle Ages.
We have mental lists of words and substances that we associate with times and places and some things just don't belong. Even though they did belong. I don't know a great deal about borax, but I came across it in a list of imports into England in the thirteenth century. I have since discovered it was used in gold and silver smithing.
I have a sudden desire to know more and all because I checked up on something I thought I knew (borax used in Medieval England) and found out that I was right.
I googled (as one does) and I discovered that borax is naturally occurring mineral and is compound of sodium, boron, oxygen and water. It travelled to Europe via the Silk Road in the Middle Ages, but these days it comes from places like Death Valley. Not enough information, but more than I had before.
I remember borax from my childhood - it belonged in the best cleaning mixture ever, which we called "Mrs Hicks's Mix" after its late creator. Alas, I have no recipe for Mrs Hicks's Mix and am reliant on commercial cleaners these days. And maybe Mrs Hicks's Mix didn't contain borax. Maybe we just had borax sitting on a shelf, doing shelf-sitting things. Memory is tricky.
I remember using borax in anti-ant experiments when I was twelve. It and peppermint oil and sugar and water all vied with each other to scientifically get rid of ant plagues. I don't remember all the things I tried (memory being tricky), just that they were many and varied and that I documented them carefully. For the record, the most efficient way of dealing with ant swarms is to vaccuum them. After a week of me having a grand old time and the ants multiplying, you see, my mother ruthlesslessly intervened with a vaccuum cleaner. Evil, but effective. No more ant plague. No more bowls of water containing crucial substances that could be tipped over by a cat or a sister or a parent or an uncle and trodden into the floor. No more notes cluttering the dinner table. Mostly, though, no more ants.
I also want to know what words and thoughts and substances belong to the Middle Ages of people's imaginations. Why gold and not borax? Do you have any favourite substances that you assume were used in the Middle Ages? What ones make you think 'this must be wrong'?
We have mental lists of words and substances that we associate with times and places and some things just don't belong. Even though they did belong. I don't know a great deal about borax, but I came across it in a list of imports into England in the thirteenth century. I have since discovered it was used in gold and silver smithing.
I have a sudden desire to know more and all because I checked up on something I thought I knew (borax used in Medieval England) and found out that I was right.
I googled (as one does) and I discovered that borax is naturally occurring mineral and is compound of sodium, boron, oxygen and water. It travelled to Europe via the Silk Road in the Middle Ages, but these days it comes from places like Death Valley. Not enough information, but more than I had before.
I remember borax from my childhood - it belonged in the best cleaning mixture ever, which we called "Mrs Hicks's Mix" after its late creator. Alas, I have no recipe for Mrs Hicks's Mix and am reliant on commercial cleaners these days. And maybe Mrs Hicks's Mix didn't contain borax. Maybe we just had borax sitting on a shelf, doing shelf-sitting things. Memory is tricky.
I remember using borax in anti-ant experiments when I was twelve. It and peppermint oil and sugar and water all vied with each other to scientifically get rid of ant plagues. I don't remember all the things I tried (memory being tricky), just that they were many and varied and that I documented them carefully. For the record, the most efficient way of dealing with ant swarms is to vaccuum them. After a week of me having a grand old time and the ants multiplying, you see, my mother ruthlesslessly intervened with a vaccuum cleaner. Evil, but effective. No more ant plague. No more bowls of water containing crucial substances that could be tipped over by a cat or a sister or a parent or an uncle and trodden into the floor. No more notes cluttering the dinner table. Mostly, though, no more ants.
I also want to know what words and thoughts and substances belong to the Middle Ages of people's imaginations. Why gold and not borax? Do you have any favourite substances that you assume were used in the Middle Ages? What ones make you think 'this must be wrong'?