magick_mushroom (magick_mushroom) wrote,
magick_mushroom
magick_mushroom

Historically, the cunning folk, wise women and witches who used herbal medicines to heal and, admittedly, sometimes to harm, were anxious to protect their recipes. This was not always because, as critics may claim, they wished to stop patients seeing through their scams, but because many of the potent ingredients should be used with care. (Which, of course, applies as clearly today as ever.)

Similarly, the incense and salve recipes used in branches of ancient or ceremonial magick were always closely guarded, both as a means of controlling knowledge and – as a cursory leaf through Agrippa or any of the Greek magickal papyri will show – because some of them were highly toxic indeed!

In Macbeth, the first three ingredients mentioned by the witches are ‘fillet of a fenny snake’, then the ubiquitous ‘eye of newt’ and ‘toe of frog’. Yummy. Well, while Shakespeare’s take on plants is that of a dramatist, not a herbalist, fenny snake has two initial explanations: ‘fenny’ meaning ‘of the fens’ or damp, boggy places, it is conceivable that it could refer to what is otherwise known as ‘a snake’s head’ i.e., a leech. Like the rather unequivocal ‘brain of a cat’ in Agrippa’s fume recipes (used by Scott Cunningham as an example for the virtues of herbal substitution), these nasty little blood-suckers were sometimes used as binding agents. As Cunningham pointed out, an egg white is just as effective, and makes less mess in your mortar.

The more common association for the Shakespearean fenny snake is jack by the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), the Indian turnip, otherwise known as ‘Snake’s Meat’. This plant is a member of the Araceae family, commonly called Arum, and grows in damp, shady conditions on rich soil. Due to its unpleasant odour, it is also sometimes called ‘Rats and Mice’ – an equally odious ingredient in a Shakespearean stew!

The plant was used medicinally by several Native American Nations; the Ojibwa and Menomonee used it to treat sties and other eye problems while, for malaria, the Osage and Shawnee combined the plant with snakeroot (aristolochia serpentaria) and the bark of the wild cherry (prunus virginiana).

The Iroquois used ‘Snake’s Meat’ as a food, eating the leaves and berries but not the rhizome itself as, in the fresh state this is highly poisonous, causing burns to the mouth. It was regarded as safe for medicinal usage once dried.

‘Eye of newt’ or, in fact, eye of anything could be a fairly generic term, meaning any herb that, like the daisy (bellis perennis) or ‘day’s eye’, represented an eye. Those with similar designations include the aster (members of the Asteraceae family; the term aster novi-belgii refers only to the Michaelmas daisy) and, of course, eyebright (euphrasia officinalis). These generic plants are used for a variety of medical complaints but, magickally, they tend to all be associated with the Sun, and health or protection.

More specific ‘secret’ names related to eyes included ‘bird’s eye’ or ‘eye of Christ’ for germander speedwell (veronica chamaedrys) although, confusingly, ‘Christ’s eye’ often referred simultaneously to vervain sage (salvia verbenaca). ‘Eye root’ was goldenseal (hydrastis canadensis) while horehound (marrubium vulgare) was rather charmingly named ‘Eye of the Star’. Less pleasantly, tamarisk galls (tamaricaceae sp.) were known as ‘blood of an eye’, and the Ox-eye daisy (leucanthemum vulgare), a great treatment for chest complaints, was variously called ‘Great Ox-eye’, ‘White’ and ‘Weed’.

So, what’s the ‘toe of frog’? Well, ‘frog’s foot’ is another name for the bulbous buttercup (ranunculus bulbosus) which, like many of the ingredients listed here, should not be taken internally, and is also irritant to the skin.

For some quite bizarre reason, the ‘wool of bat’ in Macbeth refers in common folk lore to the leaves of holly (ilex aquifolium). ‘Tongue of dog’ is of course houndstongue (cynglossum officinale), which got its name – according to one account – for a supposed ability to silence barking dogs. For this reason, it was often carried by house-breakers. Different sources suggest that, conversely, the herb could protect from attacks by savage dogs, should one wear a leaf in the sole of the shoe. Still others say that there’s nothing more to it than the fact that the leaves are shaped like a dog’s tongue, so – unlike anyone wants to provoke a rabid dog and see if the stories are true – the jury’s still out!

So, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for all that wyrd-ness by midnight. Of course, Shakespeare’s witches go on to talk about ‘scale of dragon’ – easy: dragon’s blood (daemomorops draco) itself, or tarragon (artemisia dracunculus), known as ‘The Little Dragon’ for its fierce flavour, or even bistort (polygonurn bistorta), often called ‘Dragon Weed’ – and ‘root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark’ (fairly self-explanatory).

References such as those to ‘Nose of Turk and Tartar’s Lips’, aside from being frighteningly offensive to a modern society rather more racially-integrated than Elizabethan England, are more obtuse.

The last reference to a known magickal or alchemical substance in this scene is ‘baboon’s blood’. The ‘Blood of a Hamadryas Baboon’ was a nomenclature used to refer to the blood of a spotted gecko; an example of substituting, in name, something more exotic and supposedly arcane for a relatively obtainable item. Not as obtainable as an egg white, of course, and it’s worth noting that the ‘tears’ and ‘hairs’ of the Hamadryas Baboon were, in fact, references to parts of the dill plant (anethum graveolens). Perhaps the gecko is in fact a symbol of the layers of confusion and double-bluff found in the old grimoires – one of the last vestiges of a herbalism that was, in many ways, about negativity and hidden knowledge: the ‘Gods Forbid Anyone Should Learn Something’ school of thought, if you like.

Gradually, the best parts of this knowledge are coming to light in modern study and maybe, as they do so, the image of the ‘hubble bubble, toil and trouble’ witch will slowly fade from public imagination.
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