The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Judika Illes
a living plant was desired, not just the root. Having a living mandrake plant on one’s property allegedly brings great fortune, health, and happiness. However, one must take care in transplanting it—any injury to the plant allegedly results in insanity for the guilty party.
See ANIMALS: Donkeys; DICTIONARY: Alraune; Mojo.
Mistletoe
(Viscum album)
Other names: Witch’s Branch; Witch’s Broom
Mistletoe is native to a region stretching from Northern Europe to Northwest Africa and east all the way to Japan. Wherever it is found, mistletoe is considered holy, sacred, powerful, and magical.
Mistletoe is unique: it was understood as a plant that wasn’t a plant—a sort of magical plant. Mistletoe doesn’t grow in Earth; it’s a parasite that attaches itself to trees and eventually may kill them. (Identification of mistletoe with witches wasn’t always meant positively. Other inferences were also intended.)
Mistletoe’s poisonous berries look like tiny golden full moons. In German, these berries are known as “witch’s berries.”
Mistletoe may be the golden bough that inspired Sir James Frazer’s influential book of that name. Mistletoe was sacred to the Greeks and Romans, who believed that it originated when lightning struck trees. For them, mistletoe represented life energy and generative, magic power. If Frazer is correct, mistletoe was sacred to Diana, Queen of Witches.
The Celts nicknamed mistletoe “thunderbroom,” uniting male and female sexual symbolism. No other botanical is as profoundly associated with Druid magic. The Druids believed that it was inauspicious for mistletoe to ever touch the ground and so created an elaborate method of harvest, which involved plucking it from the tree, using a golden sickle, with nets to catch it before it landed.
In Germanic tradition mistletoe is under the dominion of Freya, and brings blessings of love and fertility. Of course, Freya has two sides: she’s a love goddess but also a death goddess.
Mistletoe’s most famous appearance in mythology occurs when it is the object responsible for the death of Lord Balder. Balder has disturbing dreams; his imminent death is indicated. To forestall this tragedy, his mother, Frigg, travels about the Earth seeking assurances from every living being that they will never harm her son. Because mistletoe is so small and puny, she doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask. The moral of the story is an important one in herbalism: the most innocuous plants sometimes are the most lethal.
Mistletoe is used in various medicinal preparations that can only be safely prepared or administered by a master herbalist. Because of its pagan associations, and because of this needed skill, mistletoe became associated solely with witchcraft medicine and the magical arts, except for once a year on Christmas Eve, when this formerly sacred plant is hung from the ceiling to stimulate kissing, love, and romance.
See DIVINE WITCH: Freya.
Mugwort
(Artemisia vulgaris)
Other names: Motherwort; The Red Goat
Caution! Mugwort is not safe for pregnant women or for those actively attempting to conceive. Mugwort Essential Oil, also known as Armoise, its French name, is unsafe for everyone and is potentially fatal. Dried or fresh mugwort herb (the whole thing, not some concentration) is safe for occasional use by most adults.
Mugwort’s Latin name refers to it as common or vulgar Artemisia, as if any member of that plant family could possibly be common or vulgar. They are named in honor of the goddess Artemis. The most famous explanation is that she gave the plant as a gift to the physician centaur Chiron, who tutored Achilles and many other renowned Greek heroes. However another version suggests that the plant is named after Artemis because most of its medicinal uses involve female reproduction over which she has dominion.
Once upon a time, mugwort was considered among the most important of women’s herbs. It was incorporated into infusions and baths and burned as incense.
The plant allegedly protects against witchcraft, ghosts, and thieves. It is a traveler’s herb, providing safety and protection. Another nickname for mugwort is Saint John’s Girdle, commemorating John the Baptist, who allegedly roamed the wilderness eating wild honey and wearing a mugwort belt.
Mugwort is among the original bitter herbs; it doesn’t taste good and so has very few culinary uses. Mugwort’s uses tend to be restricted to women’s reproductive issues and to magic. By the Middle Ages, possession of Artemis’ sacred gift was considered sufficient evidence for conviction of witchcraft. Only midwives or witches (and for many, those terms were synonymous) could possibly use mugwort, a botanical that must be handled with care.
It may be used to stimulate fertility, however if used during pregnancy, it may have disastrous effects. Its potential gifts are dependent upon administration by skilled herb-doctors who understand both the nuances of the botanical and the nuances of the female body.
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