Witch herbs: the plants of witches and healers.

Witch herbs, witches’ plants: who are we talking about

In the countryside of Europe, those who healed with plants went by many names: herb-woman, healer, midwife, and in England the cunning folk, the people who know. The word witch came too, sometimes in a trial. Witch herbs are the plants that folk memory entrusted to them: the herbs of St John’s Eve, the ones that guard the door, and a few famous poisons.

In French, herbe aux sorcières, witches’ herb, names several plants at once: Circaea, named after Circe, the enchantress of the Odyssey; vervain; and striga, a small parasitic plant of African crops (Wikipedia (fr)). This page speaks of all the plants that witches and healers held in their hands.

The nine holy herbs

In the tenth century, an English monk copied an incantation into the Lacnunga manuscript: the Nine Herbs Charm (British Library, Harley MS 585). It calls on nine herbs against nine poisons, and mugwort comes first: “Una þu hattest, yldost wyrta”, Una is your name, oldest of herbs. In the same chant, Woden takes nine glory-twigs and strikes the serpent, which flies apart into nine pieces.

• mugwort, mucgwyrt, the first
• plantain, wegbrade
• watercress, stune
• betony, attorlaðe
• chamomile, mægðe
• nettle, stiðe
• crab apple, wergulu
• chervil, fille
• fennel, finule

Several of these identifications are still debated among philologists. Two of these herbs live at INFUSE: mugwort, wild-harvested in France, and noble chamomile, a cousin of the mægðe.

Witch herbs, one by one

Those whose history is written down, from Pliny to Maud Grieve’s herbal of 1931, with the source of each story:

Mandrake, belladonna, datura: the witches’ poisons

Mandrake, belladonna, datura and henbane belong to the nightshade family, the Solanaceae. They contain the same alkaloids, atropine and scopolamine, and the dose that poisons lies close to the dose that acts.

The Spanish physician Andrés Laguna tells, in his commentary on Dioscorides published in 1555, that in Metz he was handed a pot of green ointment taken from a couple accused of witchcraft, made, he says, of hemlock, nightshade, henbane and mandrake. He rubbed it on the hangman’s wife, who slept for thirty-six hours. From this account and a few others comes the idea of witches’ ointments, which historians still debate.

Mandrake has its own cycle of stories. In Genesis, Rachel asks Leah for it so that she may have a child. Theophrastus, in the fourth century BCE, describes how it is gathered: three circles drawn with a sword, the face turned to the west. Shakespeare’s Juliet fears the shrieks of mandrakes torn out of the earth.

These plants are met in books and in botanical gardens. We tell their story in the Forest, and we do not sell them.

St John’s Eve, Midsummer Eve

On the evening of 23 June, on the eve of the solstice, Europe went out gathering. St John’s wort flowers just then, and its name of St John’s herb returns in almost every language of the continent. In Italy, the same night, a basin of water is left outdoors with the flowers and herbs of the garden floating in it, above all St John’s wort, lavender and rosemary: in the morning, this acqua di San Giovanni is used to wash the face. Among the Slavs it is Kupala Night: herbs are gathered and woven into wreaths laid on the river, and people leap over the fires.

Elsewhere: curanderas and benzedeiras

In Latin America, the healer is called curandera; in Brazil, benzedeira, the one who blesses. In Mexico, the limpia sweeps a bunch of rue, basil or pirul over the body. In the Andes and the Amazon, curanderos blow a mouthful of Agua de Florida over the person, the soplo: a water of flowers and citrus launched in New York in 1808 by the perfumer Robert Murray. In Brazil, the benzedeira holds a sprig of arruda or guiné during her prayer.

Precautions

Mugwort: set it aside during pregnancy and breastfeeding; take care if you are allergic to the daisy family (Asteraceae). Rue is toxic: in sunlight it burns the skin that has touched it, and it is dangerous during pregnancy. Mandrake, belladonna, datura and henbane are poisons: a few berries or a few seeds are enough for a serious poisoning. Burn herbs with the window ajar, away from curtains, and with asthma, keep the smoke light. Our plants are freely sold in France and the European Union; the law varies from country to country, so check yours before ordering.

Sources

• Nine Herbs Charm: Lacnunga, British Library, Harley MS 585; Wikipedia.
• Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book XXV (mugwort, vervain). Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, IX. Genesis 30:14-16. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, IV, 3.
• M. Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1931, entries Mugwort and Mullein. J. Gerard, The Herball, 1597.
• A. Laguna, Pedacio Dioscorides Anazarbeo, Antwerp, 1555; Wikipedia.
• Cunning folk: Wikipedia. French folk names: herbe aux sorcières (fr), datura (fr), St John’s wort (fr). Cimaruta: Wikipedia. Acqua di San Giovanni: Wikipedia (it). Kupala: Wikipedia. Agua de Florida: Wikipedia.