Appendix 1

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

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