Galaxion is on hold for the summer! In its place we present “Real Magic,” drawn by me and written by my husband, David Tallan. Read it from the beginning! This story will run for six weeks, every Tuesday as usual. If you’d like to read some of the regular Galaxion story, you can start at the beginning, or why not try one of the completed short stories? Look for new pages of Galaxion to return September 1st!
I should mention that all of the calligraphy that appears on this page was done by David. He’s much better at fancy medieval letters than I am. 
Also, I will be at FanExpo here in Toronto, August 28-30! I opted to be in the Small Press area this year, so I guess for that reason I’m not listed on their website. But I will be there!! I’ll have the books for sale, along with buttons, sticky notes (I love the sticky notes), and original pages. Woo!
David here with a word about the herbs called for in the spell. In general, I was looking for herbs that medieval folk thought might be good for the eyes. I suspect I went to my handy Herbs for the Mediaeval Household: for cooking, healing and divers uses by Margaret B. Freeman (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1943). I know that’s where I went to look them up now.
There I find that Agrimony was used for “inflammation of the eyes”; Celandine “is good for sore eyes” and Fragaria Vesca (also known as Wild Strawberry) is “good for bleared eyes. Also, it is good to destroy the web in a man’s eyes.”
Clearly, these would all be excellent candidates for Thomas to work with. However, the book has nothing to say about gilly flowers (often identified with carnations or other flowers that smell like cloves). I’m sure I had a similar source and similar reasons. If anyone can track down a citation connecting gilly flowers to the healing of eyes…
Good stuff!
David: Part of your problem may be that the gilliflower (how I’ve found it spelled most places online) refers to several different flowers, as you mentioned: http://books.google.com/books?id=L30DAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA350&ots=h6w3Lcw7d6&dq=%22gilliflower%22%20medicinal%20use&pg=PA350#v=onepage&q=%22gilliflower%22%20medicinal%20use&f=false
I looked around on the ‘net but couldn’t find anything else, so being a librarian I hopped down to the 3rd floor where we have a few books on plant lore. There was still little on the gillyflower (as it was spelled, interstingly, in the books) but I did find this:
Powell’s 1979 “Meaning of Flowers” mentions that the gillyflower means “unfading beauty” or “bonds of affection.”
So perhaps what you were going for wasn’t medicinal, but a sly nod to his obviously being smitten?
Thanks for checking it out, Stewart. I really think there was some ocular medicinal usage for gillyflower. I guess I’ll have to dig farther into the boxes of stored books.
Thankfully, “bonds of affection” is listed as the meaning, rather than the effect. Otherwise, it is liable to have the opposite effect to what Thomas is intending.