Old Husbands’ Tales

Some are false, some have truth buried inside

Every aspect of life is filled with axioms and truisms. Some are worth living your life by, and others are less reliable. And the thing is, the less-reliable axioms usually have a kernel of truth buried inside. Here are some of the outdoor-related sayings that we hear all the time. Let’s separate myth from fact.

All rivers lead to civilizations.
If you’re lost, follow the river downstream. We’ve heard it so often and we’ve seen it in movies. However, it’s simply not so! The reason you hear it repeated so often is that sometimes the river will get you to a village or a town.

The north star is the brightest star in the sky.
If you’re lost, you can find the north if you can find the north star, which is the brightest star in the sky, right? If you find the brightest star in the sky, you’ve found Sirius, not the North Star. The north star is actually the 48th brightest star in the sky, and if you don’t know how to find it, you should consult a star chart.

Moss always grows on the north sides of trees.
When I was first studying survival in high school, one of my teachers was Abbie Keith, who was head of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue team at the time. He would ask us if moss grows on the north side of trees, and most of us said yes. He’d laugh and say, yes it does, but it also grows on the east side, the west side, and the south sides of trees. Moss needs shade and moisture and it will grow there the shade and moisture is greatest. Often, this is the north side of a tree, or a rock, or a barn, but not often and precise enough for this to be a good tool for navigation.

All water can be purified by boiling.
When you boil water, the temperature of boiling (212 f.) kills everything alive in the water that can make you sick. In fact, everything that gets you sick is killed off by the time the water reaches about 170 f. However, boiling will generally have no effect on salt water, nor unwanted chemicals or solvents that have gotten into the water.

You can fill your canteen with water from a cactus.
I’ve actually seen a picture of someone shoving a spigot onto a barrel cactus and turning it on to fill their canteen. Of course, that’s mythology. There is water in cacti, for sure, but it’s stored in the flesh of the cactus. You can eat your water, and it’s often very slimy and gooey, and it isn’t in a form where you can just fill your canteen.

Water that is clear, cold, and flowing is safe to drink without treatment.
Though we’d like this to be so, it just isn’t always true. Water that is moving, and moving over sands, has an ability to self-purify, but this depends on what all might be present in the water. In fact, stagnant waters can be very safe in some cases, so the flow of water is only one of many factors that makes the water safe or not.

The desert solar still is an unreliable way of getting water.
Sometimes, you get no water when you set up a solar still. I have certainly had my share of this frustration, even when I dug in a dry river bed. But I’ve also gotten water so many times from doing this that I know that success is a matter of where I dig the hole, time of year, location, and other factors. Also, though much has been made about the fact that you need to dig a hole, the fact is that this never takes more than an hour, if that. And then, you can leave that hole with its cover in place indefinitely if it’s actually giving you water. Not so with the much-easier transpiration bag. You can only leave the bag on a tree branch for perhaps 3 days tops before the heat of the bag cooks the leaves, and renders them no longer able to transpire.

You can always dig for water.
In fact, this is true! You can always dig…. But you won’t always reach water. I’ve dug small wells many times and many times had all the water we needed for several days. However, water is either underground, or it isn’t. And when it isn’t, you’ll just need to find your water elsewhere.

Rain follows the plow.
This is an old 18th and 19th century believe of the early farmers and settlers as they moved westward across North America. Because rain patterns often coincided with the time farmers prepared their fields for planting, they somehow believed that one effect of plowing was the rain!

You can make a fire by hitting two rocks together.
I have heard this so many times from people who remember something like this from childhood but they lack details. You cannot get a fire by hitting two pieces of flint, or chert, or quartzite together. However, if one of the rocks is marcasite, and the other is flint, you actually might get enough of a spark to ignite some charcloth.

You can taste-test unknown wild plants by chewing on a little and taking note of your reaction.
The so-called Universal Plant Test has been widely published, even in military handbooks. The only reason that more people don’t die from practicing this “test” is that there are not that many plants that will outright kill you! In other words, it only works accidentally, not because it is a valid test.

Plants with red are probably poisonous.
It’s true that there are some poisonous plants and mushrooms that have some parts that are red. But there are far more edible plants with red parts, such as strawberries, watermelon, and apples. This old husbands’ tale probably arose from the fact that there are reddish blotches on the poison hemlock stem, and the Amanita muscaria mushroom has a red cap.

All blue and black berries are edible.
In general, this is accurate, but it’s not worth memorizing because there are exceptions. You still need to learn to recognize the identity of berries (and other plants) before you eat them.

All white berries are poisonous.
This is a correct general statement, but again, there are many exceptions, such as mulberries, white strawberries, and others. Only eat those edible wild plants that you have positively identified.

All that glitters is gold.
If you’re out in the bush like Dude McLean, actually picking over an alluvial fan for specks of gold, you aren’t looking for the color gold. Real gold has more of a yellow color, and a small speck will smear in your hand. The far more common iron pyrite is flaky, and more of a gold color.

Here’s another I’ve heard: Wool does not keep you warm when wet. Well, that’s sorta true, but it’s not the normal saying about wool. Wool’s big thing is that it still insulates when wet because it has hollow hair follicles. In other words, there is still some insulating value to wet wool, even though it can be downright uncomfortable.

oh, and one more– and this one has many adherants: The earth is flat…..

These are just a few Old Husbands’ tales. Can you think of more?