Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (30 page)
Read Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants Online
Authors: Claudia Müller-Ebeling,Christian Rätsch,Ph.D. Wolf-Dieter Storl
Now you should do everything for me, but the image is inside of him. I have the form of Ceres [Demeter], the queen of the divine fruits who wears dresses of all white and golden shoes on her feet. But my girdle encircles larcenous dragons who reach up into the heights with the pure tracks, hanging from their own heads to the tips of their toes, winding around one after the other (Clemens, 1985: 396).
The shamanic goddess was honored above all in Colchis; her garden and initiation hall were also found there.
The garden of Hecate, wherein she grew her poisonous plants and medicinal herbs, was on found Phasis. It was next to the Imperial city of Aetes surrounded by insurmountable walls nine fathoms high, protected by seven bastions and guarded by three iron towers. High on the posts of the tower stood Artemis, radiating a trembling brilliance, with a horrifying gaze that no mortal could withstand, if he did not approach with gifts and purification offerings (Dierbach, 1833: 195).
“Moon, shine brightly; softly will I sing for you Goddess, and for Hecate in the underworld—the dogs tremble before her when she comes over the graves and the dark blood. I welcome you Hecate, the grim one, stay by me until the end. Make this magical substance as effective as that of Circe, of Medea, and of the blond Perimede.”
—T
HEOCRITUS,
2ND
E
IDYLLION,
3RD CENTURY B.C.E.
The Colchian garden of Hecate concealed numerous medicinal plants (see box).
There is a grove in the innermost room of the enclosure,
Where lush green wood ascends with shadowy tips,
Laurel trees and cornelian cherry and slender platanos aloft.
There are also many herbs in this place, arching over the deep roots;
Klymenos, complete with the noble asfoldelos, and adiantos,
Aristereon, most tender of plants, and kypeiros with thyron,
Kyklaminos, like the violet, and erysimon, complete with hormion,
Stoichas, then paionia, surrounded by thickets of polyknemon.
Then polion, mandragoras also, and pale diktamnon,
Krokos with sweet scent, and kardamom, next to kemos,
Smilax, dark poppy, and low chamaemelon,
Panakes and alkeja, with karpason and akoniton …
And many others more poisonous rose up from the ground.
—
O
RPHIC
S
ONGS OF THE
A
RGONAUTS
(910FF.)
49
A common name for the European white elm (
Ulmus laevis
Paul.) is witch elm. In antiquity the elm was a sacred tree of the gods; it stood together with Hecate and the underworld and was regarded as the residence of dreams. (Woodcut from Gerard,
The Herbal,
1633.)
Wych elm (
Ulmus glabra
Huds.) is called witch hasell in England. Gerard says that the branches and wood of this tree have frequent and widespread use in magic.
The black poplar (
Populus nigra
L.) forms the foundation for the pharmaceutical poplar salve
(Unguentum populi)
. The preparation is similar to the recipes for witches’ salve. (Woodcut from Gerard,
The Herbal,
1633.)
One berry (
Paris quadrifolia
L.) was considered one of the poisonous aconites in the early modern era. However, its legendary poisonous effects have not been confirmed by toxicology. It seems more likely that one berry has psychoactive effects; perhaps it was also an aphrodisiac. In any event, it is called “herbe true love” in England. In Germany one berry was demonized and called
Teufelsauge
(devil’s eye). (Woodcut from Gerard,
The Herbal,
1633.)
In the center of this garden
52
stood a sacred tree, a mighty oak, on which the mysterious Golden Fleece hung and “gleamed like the lightning of Zeus” (Apollonius,
Argonautica
IV.184).
In the middle, rising to the clouds, an oak stretches over the woodlands
spreading itself out and darkening the forest floor with leafy branches.
See there, hanging from the long branch, shimmering with gold,
Wrapped around it—the fleece; and with his keen eyes
the terrible dragon, the unspeakable monster, guarding it.
And the golden, shimmering flakes imprisoned him
with dreadful sweeping threads striking at him from all sides,
at the horrifying manifestation of Zeus’ profound hatred as he watched the fleece.
And the invincible hut he guarded zealously and sleeplessly,
rolling his bluish eyes with inner fury.
—O
RPHIC
S
ONGS OF THE
A
RGONAUTS (923FF.
)
In a strange way this image is reminiscent of the biblical tree of knowledge, which also stood in the middle of the garden. A serpent wrapped itself around this tree as well. However, this serpent led to the eating from the tree of knowledge while the dragon in Hecate’s garden protects the Golden Fleece, which also corresponds to divine knowledge. Just as Eve seduced Adam to taste from the fruit of knowledge, Medea made it possible for Jason to steal the fleece.
In antiquity the seeds of the peony were regarded as an “effective remedy against nightmares,” in the Middle Ages as magical protection against bewitchment. (Woodcut from Gerard,
The Herbal,
1633.)