Thyme

Overview

Thyme is so familiar it has nearly lost its strangeness. It sits in kitchen gardens and supermarket racks, reduced to a flavouring, stripped of context. But the plant itself remembers what it is: a small, wiry, sun-hardened shrub of Mediterranean scrubland, smelling of thymol and dry stone and something older — the herb that Greek soldiers burned before battle, that Scottish Highlanders drank as a tea against nightmare, that was tucked into coffins to ease the passage of the dead into whatever came next. Familiarity has not diminished it. It has only obscured it.

Botanical Notes

A low, woody-based perennial reaching 15–30cm, with tiny, elliptical, strongly aromatic leaves and small two-lipped flowers of pale pink to lilac from May to August. Prefers well-drained, alkaline soils in full sun. Native to the western Mediterranean; naturalised throughout Europe and widely cultivated. The essential oil is dominated by thymol and carvacrol — potent antimicrobials that give the plant both its scent and much of its medicinal action.

Lore & History

The Greeks associated thyme with courage — Athenian soldiers were said to bathe in thyme-infused water before battle, and to say a man "smelled of thyme" was to call him brave. The Egyptians used it in embalming. Medieval knights wore embroidered sprigs of it as a token from their ladies. In Scottish Highland tradition, a tea of wild thyme taken at dawn on May Day prevented nightmares and gave strength for the year ahead. Bees that fed on it produced the finest honey; the thyme honey of Mount Hymettus was considered the best in the ancient world.

Warnings