It doesn’t grow easily from seed but grows wildly rampant in wastelands and ruins. Those who desired mugwort were often forced to gather it in the cemeteries and ruins it favors, increasing its sinister associations. (When it’s happy in its environment, mugwort grows so well that in part of the North American Midwest, where it has been naturalized, it’s treated as a pest, fit for nothing but eradication.)
Although dried mugwort may be easily and inexpensively purchased from herbal suppliers, living mugwort plants can be difficult to obtain today. Mugwort, the ultimate witch plant, is most frequently found today in packaged “dream teas” and “dream pillows.” It is almost always the activating constituent in dreamstimulation products although, because mugwort tastes so bitter, it may be buffered by many other ingredients. As might be gathered, mugwort’s other profound gift is stimulation of dreams and clairvoyance. It usually has a fairly dramatic effect: mugwort opens the portals to other realms and shoves you through. It is worthwhile remembering that Artemis the Huntress was not a gentle goddess by anyone’s standards.
Mugwort sometimes reaches heights of five feet, blooming and achieving its peak power at Midsummer’s Eve. Mugwort is among the plants most associated with Midsummer’s. Mugwort ashes from the Midsummer’s bonfires bring good luck all year round.
See CALENDAR: Midsummer’s Eve; DIVINE WITCH: Artemis.
Mullein
(Verbascum thapsus)
Mullein is a tall, straight plant with downy leaves. When dried, the down on its leaves and stem are excellent tinder. In the days before wax was inexpensive, dried mullein stalks made excellent torches. They were used as such in the rites of the dark moon goddess, Hecate, to whom they are sacred. Hecate, Queen of Witches, is completely nocturnal. She only accepts petitions after dark and she’s fairly picky about forms of illumination. Mullein stalks are her favorite choice. This history is reflected in mullein’s many nicknames: The Hag’s Taper, or the Witch’s Taper, or Corpse Candle.
Another nickname is graveyard dust. Hecate rules the frontier between death and life, often escorting people back and forth over the border. Powdered mullein, her sacred herb, is considered an acceptable substitute for true cemetery dirt called for in magic spells.
Mullein’s associations with death aren’t limited to Hecate or Eurasia. Mullein is also sacred to Oya, the spirit of Africa’s Niger River, who has become increasingly prominent in African-Diaspora faiths where she is Queen of the Cemetery Gates. Oya is the only one among the Yoruba spirits, the orisha, who has no fear of the realm of the dead. Like Hecate, Oya is a powerful witch and herbalist who protects women and children.
Mullein is used in various herbal preparations, particularly for ear infections. It was believed to ward off wild animals. (Animals in general will not consume mullein because the downy leaves irritate their throats.) However, because of its associations with dark goddesses and pagan magic, mullein retained a somewhat sinister reputation and was identified as a witchcraft plant.
See DICTIONARY: Orisha; DIVINE WITCH: Hecate; HORNED ONE: Oya.
Nettles
(Urtica dioica)
The nettles are a family of plants widely distributed over Earth and were once considered very beneficial and widely used. Cloth was spun from nettles. The plant supplied the thread used by Germans and Scandinavians prior to the introduction of flax.
The tops of the leaves may be cooked and are very nutritious. (Stinging nettles really do sting and must be picked with gloves; however once dried or cooked, the sting is gone.) Many beneficial medicinal uses exist. By the Middle Ages, however, in the same places where it had once been prevalent and much used, stinging nettles were so associated with witchcraft that possession was grounds for accusations of being a witch. How did this once beneficial plant develop such an evil reputation?
Although nettles are used to dissolve gallbladder stones, heal wounds, and to relieve the stiffness of arthritis, its primary medicinal associations are largely female-oriented. Stinging nettles are a woman’s friend. Traditional medicinal uses included soothing and hastening labor, so the nettle became perceived as a demonic plant because Eve had been doomed to suffer in childbirth. Attempts to relieve labor pains were considered pagan, sinful, and defiant.
Stinging nettles have other uses: they are classified as a galactogogue, meaning that they stimulate and increase a woman’s milk supply. That’s a fairly innocuous use. However, honey mixed with the juice of Roman nettles (Urtica pilulifera) and applied to a strip of linen inserted vaginally prior to intercourse was an early attempt at contraception in ancient Egypt, as well as the bordellos of ancient Rome. The honey worked as a barrier. Nettle juice may have some spermicidal properties.
Nettles represented wilderness, wild women, and the general quality of being wild. Because they sting and because the juice of nettles provides the antidote for that sting, nettles were identified as the botanical equivalent of snakes, whose venom both heals and harms. Snakes were understood as the animal companion of Satan. Nettles were perceived as diabolical plants. Consuming them allegedly stimulated lust, which perhaps doesn’t seem so bad today, but was, once upon a time, among those sins for which witches, especially alluring, enchanting ones, were blamed. Nettles came to represent witches; they share the witches’ essence and back then that wasn’t meant as a compliment.
The botanical name for what is known in English as blind nettles—Lamium album—derives from Lamia, often understood as a synonym for “witch.” Lamia, in mythology, was a tragic queen reduced to stealing, killing, and maybe consuming other women’s babies.
Stinging nettles are traditionally used in witchcraft to remove curses and break spells. They are protective, guardian plants. Their stinging, prickly nature epitomizes their watchdog nature. What type of dog is most frequently chosen to serve as a guard? A cute, little, fluffy one or a dog that at least looks like it could inflict some damage? The trade in Rottweillers, Dobermans, and pit bull terriers says it all. Stinging nettles are their botanical equivalent. With stinging nettles on your side, who would trespass against you? Or so many thought.
The power of stinging nettles was cruelly turned against convicted witches. Witches were frequently dressed in nettle shirts when they were lead to the funeral pyres. This was for many reasons:
to break their magic and nullify any potential last spells or curses that the witch might cast, because the judges were afraid of their victims
to visually identify them as witches, lest bystanders forget why they were being burned
to signify the Satanic pact by the use of this diabolical plant
to discourage others from wanting any contact with the stinging nettle—only witches would continue to use them
merely to torture them even more with this botanical equivalent of a hair shirt.
It didn’t help that stinging nettles, like mugwort, grows most prolifically among stone ruins and in the cemetery. However, the fairy tale The Wild Swans suggests some awareness of injustice toward the nettles, magical practice, and practitioners of witchcraft. (See FAIRY-TALE WITCHES: Hans Christian Andersen.)
Opium Poppy
(Papaver somniferum)
Caution! Potentially poisonous and, depending where you’re located, almost definitely illegal.
There are many species of poppies, however only two, the opium poppy and the wild setaceous poppy, which may be the root ancestor species of all poppies, contain morphine in any significant amount. Opium poppies were perceived as the most powerful and magical of the species for obvious reasons. However, opium poppies tend to be illegal, even if you’re only planning to add these pretty flowers to your garden, even if you have no intention of producing opium but only wish to use these plants magically or ritually. It is highly unlikely that most of us will ever have access to opium poppies. (Attempting to order them from a seed catalog will likely get you the wrong kind of attention. You try explaining to drug officials that you’re only interested in ritual use.)
As with mandrake root, when discussing historical medicinal use, only true opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) is indicated; however, when discussing ritual or magical use, any of the many other poppy species may substitute. Vivid red corn poppies are the most popular substitute. They were also dedicated to Demeter (as are opium poppies) and serve similar magical function. Another substitute might be the red poppies classified as Papaver strigosum or “witch poppy.”
Opium poppies are most notorious as the source of opium. This overshadows every other use the plant has ever had—the leaves were once eaten as potherbs, and poppy seeds are nutritious and a source of cooking oil.
Poppies contain a tremendous amount of seeds; they are literally countless. Because of this, poppies are among the flowering plants most associated with human fertility. They are the floral equivalent of a pomegranate. As such, they were associated with the generative powers of the Earth and sacred to powerful goddesses.
Opium has been used as an aphrodisiac and intoxicant since the Stone Age, however ancient forms of usage were different than those of modern times. It was once less concentrated, the ancients not having access to derivatives or synthetics. The ancients didn’t have the technical capacity to isolate chemical constituents as is done today. There was little concept of “recreational drugs.” (There still isn’t in traditional societies today.) Instead opium poppies were understood as unique, sacred, both beneficial and dangerous and as packed with magic power as with seeds.
Opium has extremely ancient associations with human beings. Although its origins remain shrouded in mystery, opium poppies have been cultivated since that old time immemorial; no wild population exists. Some poppies may escape from a field and wander; abandoned poppy fields will thrive; but basically opium poppies live where people plant them.
Poppies were cultivated by European Neolithic cave dwellers. They are believed to have eventually traveled from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean during the later Neolithic period, following the amber trade route. By the Bronze Age, opium poppies were well distributed throughout the Eastern Hemisphere and used medicinally, as a food source, and as an intoxicant. The most ancient form of use, for instance, was an infusion, either opium poppyinfused water or wine. Helen of Troy’s elixir of forgetfulness, nepenthe, is believed to have contained opium as well as those other witches’ plants, mandrake and henbane.
Medicinal use of opium disappeared in Europe in the wake of the Black Death, hence its later associations with Asia where it was still used medicinally, ritually, and magically. (It was eventually reintroduced by the physician/ alchemist Paracelsus in the form of laudanum.) Although gone, opium poppies were never quite forgotten: perhaps because they retained their mystique, were mysterious and powerful, and because herbal skill and knowledge was required for safe, successful administration, opium poppies became associated with witchcraft. Opium poppies are believed to have been among the ingredients in witches’ flying ointments.
Because of their notoriety, it is easy to overlook the beauty of opium poppies: although they also come in other colors including white and purple, most are a vivid blood red, the color anciently identified with luck, life, and good fortune. That red color also emphasizes opium’s association with fertility power and the deities who preside over it.
The Greek Corn Mother Demeter drank opium to relieve her state of grief over the loss of her daughter Persephone. She wears a necklace formed from opium pods. Although very little is known about the religious rituals known as the Eleusinian Mysteries that were devoted to Demeter and Persephone, opium poppies seem to have played a part.
Hathor’s necklace is formed from opium pods and mandrake. Hathor is the ancient Egyptian goddess of joy and intoxication. In addition to opium poppies, Hathor presided over beer, wine, and musical intoxication, too.
Isis sometimes holds poppies, too. Thebes, in ancient Egypt, was renowned for its poppy fields.
Poppies are sacred to the Russian forest witch, Baba Yaga. The seeds are incorporated into her initiation rituals.
Nyx the Greek goddess of night, carries a bouquet of poppies, while her son Thanatos, “Death,” wears his poppies in a garland.
Hermes was also associated with poppies. Originally a shamanic fertility deity, associated with horned animals like sheep and goats, Hermes retains his function as messenger between realms. His home is in Mekone, which translates as “poppy town.” His magic staff can cause sleep if he wills it so. That staff with its two entwined serpents remains emblematic of the medical profession. Snakes and poppies were once representative of healing and the physician’s art.
Opium poppies are associated with the sacred physician, Asklepios, Apollo’s son. Visitors seeking treatment at the Temple of Asklepios were given poppy extract to induce curative dreams. Asklepios is sometimes depicted holding the readily identifiable opium capsules in one hand and his serpent entwined staff in the other. (Asklepios’ staff, unlike Hermes’ caduceus, only has one snake.)
Mythic associations are based on actual observation. Poppy seeds will remain viable within Earth for a very long time. Should the soil then be disturbed or churned up, long dormant seeds will suddenly germinate en masse and fields of brilliant red flowers will spectacularly bloom. The ancients identified this phenomenon with the resurrection of the dead and renewal of life, and it was vividly demonstrated during World War I when fields of battle in Flanders and Northern France blossomed with countless scarlet poppies.
Somniferum, the Latin name given to distinguish opium poppies from other poppies, derives from Somnus, the Roman Lord of Sleep, hence such related words as somnambulist and somnolent.
Today opium poppies are dreaded and banned as the source of illegal and dangerous narcotics. “Narcotic” in modern terminology implies “dangerous,” “addictive,” and frequently an “illicit” or “illegal” drug. However, in traditional medicinal usage, in the word’s most technical sense, “narcotic” indicates a substance that induces sleep. Narcotics, in the medical sense of the word, are powerful sedatives and soporifics; they relieve pain and put you to sleep, enabling healing to occur. For millennia, opium was the only reliable anesthetic in existence.
Alkaloids were first discovered by studying opium poppies—as were the entire concept of alkaloids. In 1803, a German pharmacist isolated the very first alkaloid. Discovering that it was highly narcotic and the primary active constituent of opium, he named it morphine in honor of Morpheus, the Greek Lord of Dreams. Opium has since been discovered to contain 40 other alkaloids.
