Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (6 page)

• Saint John’s wort
  (Hypericum perforatum):
  This true midsummer flower is strongly influenced by the midday sun. The countless gold-yellow filaments burst out of the calyx like sun rays. They make the flowers, which open only during dry weather, look like tiny suns. The flower petals look as if they might be small airplane propellers and are reminiscent of swirling beams of light and of the light chakras. As a medicinal herb, this plant of the Sunflower family has a soothing effect on the nerves, brings light into the soul, and chases away the darkness.
  
• Chamomile
  (Matricaria chamomilla):
  The northern peoples saw the countenance of the sun god in this yellow Asteraceae with its white radiant crown (ray flowers). They called this friendly little herb Balder’s brow. It is a powerful medicinal herb with anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antiseptic, and soothing properties. As a “mother’s herb” it was used to wash and cleanse the woman during the weeks following childbirth.
  
• Wild thyme
  (Thymus serpyllum):
  Wild thyme is also anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, digestive, and expectorant. It is a good herb for colds and lungs. Thyme is also a “woman’s herb.” It was sacred to Freya, and was placed in the pillows of the sickbed. The Slavs call it “little soul of the mother.”
  
• Wolf’s claw
  (Lycopodium):
  The mosslike wolf’s claw, or common club moss, is used in folk medicine for rheumatism, lumbago, diarrhea, cramps, and disorders of the genitourinary tract. The green fronds are woven into the midsummer belt or burned in the solstice fire. The plentiful yellow spore dust known as witch’s flour, lightning powder, or druid’s flour is oily and explodes with a bright bolt of lightning and thunder when thrown on flames. Stone Age magicians made use of these dramatic effects, just as the theater directors of the past century did. The Celtic druids considered wolf’s claw to be an important magical herb. According to Pliny, ancient people sacrificed bread and mead and then picked wolf’s claw with their left hands while barefoot and wearing clean white robes on the night of a new moon. They made protective amulets from the
  selago,
  as they called wolf’s claw. During the Middle Ages wise women used it against sorcery, spells, and the evil eye.
  
• Mugwort
  (Artemisia vulgaris):
  This gray, bitter herb is considered one of the most important women’s herbs. Sitz baths and teas of mugwort—depending on the strength of the dosage—help to bring on missed menses, hasten birth or afterbirth, or expel a dead fetus. The herb has also played an important role as an incense and for the blessing of shamans before entering the flight of the soul.
  
• Arnica
  (Arnica montana):
  This yellow-flowered plant in the Sunflower family is also known as leopard’s bane,
  Wolfsgelb
  (wolf-yellow), and
  Wolfsauge
  (wolf-eye). It is strewn in the fields at midsummer in order to protect the crops from the grain demon, the Bilwis. In heathen times the Bilwis, which means “he with wondrous wisdom,” was none other than the priest who protected the fields; that was before the missionaries demonized him. He placed “wolfwort” around the fields so that the field’s vital energy, the so called grain-wolf, would not escape. If this energy vanished from the field, the grain would spoil. Later, during the harvest, the grain wolf slipped into the last sheaf. It was then decorated and carried triumphantly and with great rejoicing by the harvesters into the village.
  

This herb of Freya is, as might be expected, very medicinal and should not be absent from the bundle of solstice herbs. It has antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative properties. It is particularly good for bruises, sprains, bursitis, joint problems, and disorders of the lymphatic system. In small oral dosages it works as a vasodilator and circulatory stimulant; in strong doses it is poisonous and has an abortifacient action. Arnica was used in weather magic as an incense during storms:

Arnica burn hot, that the storm might be not!

• Calendula
  (Calendula officinalis):
  The golden yellow flowers, called “Marygold” or “sun-bride” in the Middle Ages, were once sacred to the Great Goddess (Freya) and were used for love magic everywhere. When a girl plants or harvests the
  Niewelkblume,
  the “never-wilt flower,” in the footprints of her lover, he must come to her regardless of whether or not he wants to. No wonder that the Protestant priest Hieronymus Bock wrote indignantly in his
  New Kreütterbuch
  [New Herbal, 1539] that “many women use it superstitiously and in love potions.” As a medicinal plant calendula is similar to chamomile. It is one of the best wound-healing herbs, useful for cuts, phlebitis, herpes, ulcers, and inflamed nipples. The salve, preferably cooked in goat lard, is good for burns, bruises, and sunburn. The tea is an effective remedy for cramps, gallbladder complaints, glandular disorders, intestinal inflammation, and liver problems.
  
• Elder
  (Sambucus nigra):
  The elder is a sacred tree, a ritual tree around which circle dances were performed. It was sacred to Frau Holle, the “witch goddess.” At the summer solstice, when the elder bloomed, it was associated with the ecstasy of summer love.
  

On midsummer when the elder blooms, then love is even greater!

The flowers were dipped in batter and fried to make sweet elder cakes. The person who ate the most would be the best at leaping over the solstice fire. In Allgäu, Germany, the lard in which the little fritter had been fried was saved and used as a medicinal salve. In general, elder is considered the farmer’s “pharmacy.”

Bark, berries, leaves, and blossoms,

Every part is strength and goodness,

Every part is full of blessings!

• Oxeye daisy
  (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum):
  This midsummer flower, also known as marguerite, was used as an oracle. Midsummer, like all sacred times when the intangible grows near, is the time of oracles. A daisy is the “star flower” of Gretchen in Goethe’s
  Faust:
  “He loves me, he loves me not.” Elsewhere the girls pluck the white raylike flowers to see whom they will marry: “Noble man, beggar man, city man, farmer, soldier, king, emperor, lawyer.”
  

Those who are pregnant ask: “Boy, girl; boy, girl?” A girl can also place a daisy under her pillow and her future husband will appear to her in a dream. The oxeye daisy has a medicinal action similar to that of chamomile, but much weaker.

• Vervain
  (Verbena officinalis):
  Like arnica, vervain was placed around the fields to prevent bad weather and to ensure a good harvest. It was sacred to the mighty hammer-god, who rules over lightning and thunder and who drenches the earth with fertile rain. The ancient smiths, protégés of the thunder-god, used vervain in a procedure for hardening steel. Thus it comes as no surprise that this herb was used to make love as hot as “burning iron.” It was mixed into love potions for a man so that his member would “become as hard as iron.”
  
• Yarrow
  (Achillea millefolium):
  This aromatic Asteraceae is also known as the “eyebrow of Venus” because of its small, finely feathered leaves. It is one of the most important medicinal herbs for women and for wounds.
  
• Wood betony
  (Stachys officinalis, Betonia officinalis):
  This nearly forgotten plant in the Mint family has become increasingly rare but was once considered almost a panacea. It was the most beloved of the bewitching herbs. It was boiled in water and used to bathe children and pets who were possessed or bewitched; the bathwater washed away the bad magic. In addition, betony tea was also used for chest problems, vomiting of blood, lung problems, worms, fever, jaundice, spleen problems, gout, uterine bleeding, dizziness, spiritual and emotional confusion, and many other afflictions. The esteem in which betony was held can be appreciated in the Italian saying
  Venda la tonica e compra betonica
  (“Sell your coat and buy betony”).
  
• Burdock
  (Arctium lappa):
  Burdock, with its huge leaves and clinging fruits, was considered a true “bear” plant by the Celts and Germanic peoples, sacred to the mighty thunderer and hammer-slinging Thor. And because the “heavenly bear” (Asenbär, or Osbjorn), who scared off the giants and the
  thurses
  who were antagonistic to humans, reigned over the fierce summer storms, the plant was also gathered in midsummer. It was placed in the gables of houses to protect against lighting strikes and the machinations of giants. A brew of the roots was used as a shampoo to make the hair as beautiful and as full as that of the divine bushybearded, long-haired god. As late as the Enlightenment, farmers hung burdock over their doors and braided it into their hair or a cow’s tail to ward off evil. For threadworm—the thunderer hates every kind of worm and snake—a bundle of burdock was held in one hand, a stone (representing Thor’s hammer) in the other, and words like the following were spoken: