Growing your own herbs is cool. You can honor them for their life force and envision your magickal purposes in them from seed until harvest. If you buy your herbs you should say a blessing over them before using them for spellwork.
When you are ready to begin using your herbs it is important to enchant or send your own energy and purpose into them. Hold the herbs, inhale their scent. Feel yourself melding with the herbs.
Herbs can be used in any and/or all magickal workings to aid and enhance the needed outcome. They can be used in incenses, oils, recipes, teas, to smoke or alone. Some popular ways of using herbs are:
Poppets: A poppet is a cloth figure shaped to human form and stuffed with the appropriate herb for the purpose of gaining a desired effect.(ie:healing, love). and:
Sachet: A small square of cloth filled with the appropriate herb for your spellwork and sewed or tied shut. The sachet is then carried with you. This is convenient in work that needs color correspondences because you can use colored cloth and colored thread or yarn to enhance the spellwork.
There are also four basic elemental methods for using herbs.
Earth Method - Make a sachet of the appropriate herb Take it to an outdoor spot that you feel is empowered. Bury the sachet while performing a ritual of your choice keeping the intent clear. Leave and don't return.
Air Method - Stand in an open place on a hill. Place a portion of your herb in the palm of your hand and starting with North, blow a little of the herb into the wind. Next East, then South. At West blow all of the remainding herb into the wind. Visualize your intent. It is done.
Fire Method - Take a piece of parchment paper and write your intent on it. Place a portion of the herb of choice in it and wrap it into a small packet. Toss the packet into a fire. Have your intent in mind.
Water Method - Take the appropriate herb to a lake, stream, river, etc. Hold the herb in you hand as you envision your intent. With a sweeping motion scatter the herb into the water.
I have been told that there are over 10,000 different herbs. The following pages will contain the most used and popular. I will continue to add to the pages as I hear of other herbs and their magickal properties. If you know of any that I am missing please send me the info to include on these pages.
OIL DRY HERB
1 part herbs= 1 drop= 1/2 teaspoon
2 part herbs= 2 drops= 1 teaspoon
3 part herbs= 3 drops= 1 1/2 teaspoon
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,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Macbeth
Witches of old called plants by secret names probably due to a few reasons. One being to protect themselves from being found out to be witches. Another reason was due to not knowing the true name of an herb so they named it for the properties it carried. For instance Tongue of the Dog(houndstongue) was said to be an herb that could quiet a dog's barking. Another reason was due to the fact that many witches were women and women hate to share their recipes. ;-)
Here are some old time names for herbs:
A Bone of an Ibis: Buckthorn
Adders Tongue: Dogstooth Violet
A Titan's Blood: Wild Lettuce
A Lion's Hairs: Tongue of a Turnip [i.e., the leaves of the taproot]
A Man's Bile: Turnip Sap
A Pig's Tail: Leopard's Bane
A Hawk's Heart: Heart of Wormwood
An Eagle: Wild Garlic
Ass's Foot or Bull's Foot: Coltsfoot
Blood: Elder sap or another tree sap
Blood of Hephaistos: Wormwood
Burning Bush: White Dittany
Bread and Cheese Tree: Hawthorne
Blood from a Head: Lupine
Bird's Eye: Germander Speedwell
Blood of Ares: Purslane
Blood of a Goose: A Mulberry Tree's Milk
Bloodwort: Yarrow
Blood of Hestia: Camomile
Blood of an Eye: Tamarisk Gall
Blood from a Shoulder: Bear's Breach
Bat's Wings: Holly
Black Sampson: Echinacea
Bull's Blood or Seed of Horus: Horehound
Bear's Foot: Lady's Mantle
Calf's Snout: Snapdragon
Cat's Foot: Canada Snake Root and/or Ground Ivy
Candelmas Maiden: Snowdrop.
Capon's Tail: Valerian.
Christ's Ladder: Centaury
Cheeses: Marsh Mallow
Chocolate Flower: Wild Geranium
Christ's Eye: Vervain Sage
Clear-eye: Clary Sage
Click: Goosegrass
Cucumber Tree: Magnolia
Clot: Great Mullein
Corpse Plant: Indian Pipe.
Crowdy Kit: Figwort
Cuddy's Lungs: Great Mullein
Crow Foot: Cranesbill
Cuckoo's Bread: Common Plantain
Clear Eye: Clary Sage
Crow's Foot: Wild Geranium
Devils Dung: Asafoetida
Dragon's Blood: Calamus
Dog's Mouth: Snap Dragon
Daphne: Laurel/Bay
Devil's Plaything: Yarrow
Dove's Foot: Wild Geranium
Dew of the Sea: Rosemary
Dragon Wort: Bistort
Earth Smoke: Fumitory
Eye of Christ: Germander Speedwell
Elf's Wort: Elecampane
Enchanter's Plant: Vervain
Englishman's Foot: Common Plantain
Erba Santa Maria: Spearmint
Everlasting Friendship: Goosegrass
Eye of the Day: Common Daisy
Eye of the Star: Horehound
Eye Root: Goldenseal
Eyes: Aster, Daisy, Eyebright
Frog's Foot: Bulbous Buttercup
From the Loins: Camomile
Fat from a Head: Spurge
Fairy Smoke: Indian Pipe
Felon Herb: Mugwort
From the Belly: Earth-apple
From the Foot: Houseleek
Five Fingers: Cinquefoil
Fox's Clote: Burdock
Graveyard Dust: Mullein
Goat's Foot: Ash Weed
God's Hair: Hart's Tongue Fern
Golden Star: Avens
Gosling Wing: Goosegrass
Graveyard Dust: Mullein
Great Ox-eye: Ox-eye Daisy
Hairs of a Hamadryas Baboon: Dill Seed
Hair of Venus: Maidenhair Fern
Hag's Taper: Great Mullein
Hagthorn: Hawthorn
Hare's Beard: Great Mullein
Herb of Grace: Vervain
Hind's Tongue: Hart's Tongue Fern
Holy Herb: Yerba Santa
Holy Rope: Hemp Agrimony
Hook and Arn: Yerba Santa
Horse Tongue: Hart's Tongue Fern
Horse Hoof: Coltsfoot
Hundred Eyes: Periwinkle
Innocense: Bluets
Jacob's Staff: Great Mullein
Joy of the Mountain: Marjoram
Jupiter's Staff: Great Mullein
King's Crown: Black Haw
Knight's Milfoil: Yarrow
Kronos' Blood: of Cedar
Lady's Glove: Foxglove aka Witches' Gloves
Lion's Tooth: Dandelion aka Priest's Crown
Lad's Love: Southernwood
Lamb's Ears: Betony
Little Dragon: Tarragon
Love in Idleness: Pansy
Love Leaves: Burdock
Love Lies Bleeding: Amaranth or Anemone
Love Man: Goosegrass
Love Parsley: Lovage
Love Root: Orris Root
Man's Health: Ginseng
Maiden's Ruin: Southernwood
Master of the Woods: Woodruff
May: Black Haw
May Lily: Lily of the Valley
May Rose: Black Haw
Maypops: Passion Flower
Mistress of the Night: Tuberose
Mutton Chops: Goosegrass
Nose Bleed: Yarrow
Old-Maid's-Nightcap: Wild Geranium
Old Man's Flannel: Great Mullein
Old Man's Pepper: Yarrow
Oliver: Olive
Password: Primrose
Pucha-pat: Patchouli
Peter's Staff: Great Mullein
Priest's Crown: Dandelion leaves
Poor Man's Treacle: Garlic
Queen of the Night: Vanilla Cactus
Queen of the Meadow: Meadowsweet
Queen of the Meadow Root: Gravelroot
Ram's Head: American Valerian
Red Cockscomb: Amaranth
Ring-o-bells: Bluebells
Robin-run-in-the-grass: Goosegrass
Semen of Helios: White Hellebore
Semen of Herakles: Mustard-rocket
Semen of Hermes: Dill
Semen of Hephaistos: This is Fleabane
Semen of Ammon: Houseleek
Semen of Ares: Clover
Seed of Horus: Horehound
Sparrow's Tongue: Knotweed
Soapwort: Comfrey or Daisy
Shepherd's Heart: Shepherd's Purse
Swine's Snout: Dandelion leaves
Shameface: Wild Geranium
See Bright: Clary Sage
Scaldhead: Blackberry
Seven Year's Love: Yarrow
Silver Bells: Black Haw
Sorcerer's Violet: Periwinkle
St. John's Herb: Hemp Agrimony.(this is not St. John's Wort)
St. John's Plant: Mugwort
Star Flower: Borage
Star of the Earth: Avens
Starweed: Chickweed
Sweethearts: Goosegrass
Tarragon: Mugwort
Tartar Root: Ginseng
Thousand Weed: Yarrow
Thunder Plant: House Leek
Tanner's Bark: Common Oak
Toad: Toadflax
Torches: Great Mullein
Tongue of dog: houndstongue
Tears of a Hamadryas Baboon: Dill Juice
Unicorn Root: Ague Root
Unicorn's Horn: False Unicorn:Helonias Dioica
Unicorn Horn: True Unicorn Root
Wax Dolls: Fumitory
Weazel Snout: Yellow Dead Nettles/Yellow Archangel
White: Ox-eye Daisy
White Wood: White Cinnamon
Witch's Asprin: White Willow/Willow Bark
Witch's Brier: Brier Hips
Weasel Snout: Yellow Archangel
Wolf Foot: Bugle Weed
Wolf Claw: Club Moss
Wolf's Milk: Euphorbia
Weed: Ox-Eye Daisy
White Man's Foot: Common Plantain
HERBS for the SABBATS
PLANETARY HERBS
HERBAL GENDER
HERBS FOR THE DAYS of the WEEK
