Dittany of Crete

In Medieval times scholars produced manuscripts known as Bestiaries. A Bestiary or Bestiarum vocabulum was a compendium of animals, both real and mythical. They were popular in England and France during the 12th and 13th Centuries. They described with illustrations each animal or beast drawn from ancient knowledge and wisdom with an accompanying moral lesson.

During the Medieval period the belief was that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning.

Thus Dittany was likened to Christ in the following description of the Roe Deer in a Bestiary.

The Roe Deer has these characteristics, that while feeding it moves from

high places to even higher; with the keenness of its vision it chooses the

good plants from among the noxious ones; it is an herbivore that chews

the cud.

 

When wounded it runs to dittany, by the touch of which it is healed. Thus, good preachers, feeding on the law of the Lord and on good works, as if enjoying food,

ascend from virtue to virtue. They pick good thoughts out of the evil eyes of the

heart, and ruminate upon those chosen, that is, they examine the good and

commit the well chewed to memory.

 

Wounded by sin they run in confession to Christ and they are quickly healed.

Thus, Christ is properly called dittany, for as dittany draws the weapon fron

the wound and heals the wound, so Christ through confession, ejects the Devil

and pardons the sin.

 

(A Medieval Book of Beasts Willene B. Clark)