The Magical Names of
Herbs, Flowers, Trees, and Roots
When the old recipes began to be recorded, many early herbalists, Witches, magicians, and occultists wished to keep secret the most powerful of the old magic. So they used magical names and symbolism and even added fanciful ingredients to the formulae.
Even today, scholars look over old manuscripts. shake their heads, and wonder why old occultists used such horrifying ingredients as the ear of a Jew, bloody fingers, dove’s feet, bat’s wings, and so on.
The often-quoted illustration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth serves as a useful example of this practice. Every ingredient he lists as being in the Witches’ pot (fillet of a fenny snake / in the cauldron boil and bake: / eye of newt, and toe of frog, / Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, / adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting / Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing, / etc.) refers to a plant and not to the gruesome substance popularly thought.
The list of such names is quite long and varied, but a few examples can be given here. Bloody fingers refers to foxglove. Tongue of dog is simply hound’s tongue, a common herb. Blood is the sap from an elder tree. Eyes mean any one of a group of plants resembling the eye, as the aster, daisy, camomile, or perhaps even eyebright. Crow’s foot, dog’s tooth, horse-tongue, and Jew’s ear are all magical and dialectical names for herbs and plants.
Then, too, many plants were given folk names that reveal their uses in magic or the superstitions surrounding them. This is especially common in the British Isles, where one plant can be known by as many as two dozen distinct names.
Finally, there are a whole bookful of plants with appelations such as our ladies fingers or old man’s oatmeal. These are plants originally dedicated to the pagan goddesses and gods of the common folk and after the introduction of Christianity were assigned new roles as representative of the Virgin Mary and the Devil, respectively.
Following is a list of some magical names of herbs, along with their more common ones. Knowing these names may not give you additional power, but reading them is like taking a walk through a Witch’s garden, and to the keen eye the old names reveal magical uses and a good deal of folklore.
Candlemas maiden: Snowdrop
Candlewick plant: Mullein
Crown for a king: Wormwood
Dew of the sea: Rosemary
Dragonwort: Bistort
Dwale: Deadly nightshade
Earth smoke: Fumitory
Elfwort: Elecampane
Enchanter’s plant: Vervain
Eye of the star: Horehound
Five finger grass: Cinquefoil
Golden star: Avens
Honey lotus: Melilot
Joy of the mountain: Marjoram
Little dragon: Tarragon
Love-in-idleness: Pansy
Love parsley: Lovage
Loveroot: Orris
Maiden’s ruin/Lad’s love: Southernwood
Master of the woods: Woodruff
Masterwort: Angelica
May lily: Lily of the valley
Mistress of the night: Tuberose
Password: Primrose
Queen of the meadow: Meadowsweet
Ram’s head: American valerian
Seven years’ love: Yarrow
Sleep wort: Lettuce
Sorcerer’s violet: Periwinkle
Starflower: Borage
Star of the earth: Avens
Starweed: Chickweed
Starwort: Aster
Thousand seal: Yarrow
Thunder plant: Houseleek
Unicorn horn: True unicorn root
Wax dolls: Fumitory
Witches aspirin: White willow bark
Witches bells: Foxglove
Witch grass: Dog grass
Witch herb: Mugwort
Witchwood: Rowan
Witches briar: Brier hip