The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy

A curious survival of the age of superstition and romance attaches to the red resin known as dragon’s blood, and is still largely practised by a certain class of uneducated women in many parts of the country. The resin is the product of the Pterocarpus Indicus growing in the East Indies, and now chiefly used as a colouring agent in varnishes and stains, etc. It was formerly employed in medicine for its astringent properties, but has now entirely gone out of use for that purpose.[4]

The secret of its use as a charm is shrouded in some mystery, and those who use it are very reticent in giving particulars; but it has been gathered, that several charms of a romantic nature are worked with this otherwise very commonplace article of commerce. The most common of these seems to be practised by young girls who are jealous of their lovers and seek to win back their affection. A small quantity of dragon’s blood is procured, wrapped in paper, and thrown on the fire whilst the following couplet or incantation is repeated:—

A chemist in the north of England, giving his experience on the sale of dragon’s blood, says: “I have had great difficulty in finding out for what purpose it was used. It was not for medicine, but for a kind of witchcraft. The women burn it upon a bright fire, while wishing for their affection to be returned by some one of the opposite sex; also those who have quarrelled with their husbands and desire to be friends again; girls who have fallen out with their young men, and want to win them back; as well as young women wanting sweethearts. A working man recently came to me for a small quantity, and I inquired for what purpose it was required. He was very reluctant to mention anything about it, but at length said, a man had made him lose three sovereigns, and he wished, as he had been swindled out of the money, to have his revenge, and make him suffer for it. He was going to turn the dragon’s blood on a clear fire, and he believed that the ill wishes of the person thus burning it would have a dire effect on the individual thought of.”

Altogether, considerable romantic properties seem to be associated with this resin, but there seems to be no authentic record of the same, the only probable explanation being, that it was used and sold, like other innocent articles, by those who were supposed to have dealings in the black art, for working charms, which have thus been handed down from mediæval times. Coles states: “The early Greeks called dragon’s blood Cinnabaris, not knowing whether it was of vegetable or mineral origin; and that Pliny, Solinus, and Monardus have set it down for truth that it was the blood of a dragon or serpent, crushed to death by the weight of the dying elephant falling upon him; but he thinks it was certainly so called from the bloody colour that it is of, being nothing else but a mere gum”. It was used medicinally as an emmenagogue, and in the arts 300 years ago by goldsmiths and painters in glass, by the former as a base for enamel to set a foil under precious stones to give them greater lustre, and the latter by fire, to strike a crimson colour into glass for stained windows.

That a belief in charms and witchcraft is still fostered by ignorant people in some parts of the country, is manifest from cases reported in the newspapers from time to time. Two practitioners of the occult sciences were haled before the magistrates but recently. One, an old crone, who confessed to using dragon’s blood in working her love charms, was rewarded with seven days with hard labour.

The other, which came to light in Cornwall, was a middle-aged individual who practised as a wizard. His treatment consisted of writing an amulet to be worn near the body. Money was then required to remove the spell from the bewitched patient to some one else. To this victim was to be lent neither “cock, pin, or pan,” and by the aid of the planets the patient would be cured. But these are hard times truly for the wizard and magician, and this professor was rewarded with seven months’ incarceration in one of her Majesty’s gaols.

Singular superstitious properties are attributed to certain plants. The walnut was formerly employed in medicine as an application to wounds and an antidote to poisons; and the following old riddle, says William Coles in 1657, “almost every one knows”:—

There is an old tradition that the more the branches are beaten, the more prolific the fruit will be. There is a fable in Æsop of a woman who asked the walnut tree growing by the wayside, which was pelted at with stones and sticks by them that passed by, why it was so foolish as to bring forth fruit seeing that it was so beaten for its pains, to which the tree rehearsed these two proverbial verses:—

“The English whereof,” the chronicler quaintly continues, “I could tell you, but that I fear the women of this preposterous age would be angry.” True it is that this tree, the more it is beaten the more nuts it bears. The walnut was one of the chief ingredients in the celebrated antidote against poison which was attributed to the wise king Mithridates. The formula ran as follows: “Two (wall) nuttes and two figges and twenty rewe beans, stamped together with a little suet and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison and pestilence that day”.[5]

Tradition says that a weasel, going to fight with a serpent, eateth rue, and rubbeth herself therewith to avoid his poison. Crollius states: “The sign of the cross upon the seed of the rue, drives away all phantoms and evil spirits by signature”.

Henbane, the Latins called Apollinaris, either from Apollo, the inventor of physic, or because it makes men mad like unto Apollo’s creatures when they deliver his oracles. “It was called in English henbane, because the seeds are hurtful to hens,” says William Coles. “The fumes of the dryed herb when burnt, will make Hens fall from their roosting place as though they were dead.”

Of the moonwort, a simple used to allay bleeding and applied to fractures, an old tradition says that it can be used to open locks, fetters, and shoes from those horses feet that go on the places where it groweth, and of this opinion was Culpepper, who, though he railed against superstition in others, tells a story of a troop of horse of the Earl of Essex, which being drawn up in a body, many of them lost their shoes upon White Downe in Devonshire, near Tiverton, because moonwort grows upon the heaths.

The root of the Polygonatum angulosum, commonly called Solomon’s Seal, has a popular reputation for removing the congealed blood from a bruise after a blow or fall, for which property it appears to have been used 800 years ago. Coles states: “The bruised roots soddereth and gleweth together broken bones very speedily and strangely, the roots being stamped and outwardly applied as a pultis. The same also is available for outward bruises, falls, or blowes, both to dispel the congealed blood and to take away the paines, and the black and blew markes that abide after the hurt.” The origin of the name Solomon’s Seal is doubtless due to the dark marks seen on cutting the root transversely, which somewhat resemble an ancient seal engraved with characters.

An old author quaintly remarks with respect to its properties: “The roots of Solomon’s Seale stamped while it is fresh and greene and applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, blacke or blew spots gotten by fals, or woman’s wilfulness in stumbling upon their hastie husband’s fists or such like”.

The anemone was regarded by the ancients as an emblem of sickness, and Pliny tells us that the physicians and wise men ordered every person to gather the first anemone he saw in the year, repeating at the same time, “I gather thee for a remedy against disease”. It was then devoutly placed in scarlet cloth and kept undisturbed unless the gatherer became unwell, when it was tied either around the neck or the arm of the patient.

There is an old tradition that the white veins of the variety of thistle known as the Carduus Marianus was caused originally by a drop of the milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen thereon, and for this cause the plant was in early times much revered.

The house leek, with its pretty rose-coloured flowers, often seen growing along the tops of walls and on the roofs of cottages in country places, was formerly known by the imposing name of the thunder plant, from the power it was supposed to possess of averting lightning from the house or building on which it was planted. Hence the custom of planting it on the roof.

St. John’s wort was a noted herb in magical arts, and was also esteemed as a repellant of spectres and to drive away demons, and was called Fuga Dæmonum by the old botanists. French and German peasants still gather the plant with great ceremony on St. John’s Day.

That charming little wild flower the scarlet pimpernell, which grows in our fields and hedges, ranked among the simples of ancient times. It was used as a remedy against the plague, and an antidote against the bites and stings of venomous insects, and to stop bleeding. This latter attribute was doubtless more mythical than correct, being founded on what the ancients called having the signature, which meant that if a substance was of blood colour it signified it would stop bleeding because of the same. Hung over the door or porch of a house, it was believed to defend the inmates from witchcraft.

Josephus states in his History of the Jews[7] that Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting its virtues. The root of the herb was concealed in a ring, which was applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself declares that he saw a Jewish priest practice the art of Solomon, with complete success, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribune of the Roman army.

From this art, exhibited through the medium of a ring or seal, we have the Eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon and record its wonderful sway over the various orders of genii, who were supposed to be the invisible tormentors or benefactors of the human race.

“Vervain,” says Coles, “was reported to be effectual against all poisons and the venom of dangerous beasts and serpents, and also against bewitched drinks and the like, so that it is not only used in, but against witchcraft. That this herb is used by witches may appear from the story of Anne Bodenham, the witch of Salisbury, who sent her ruffian-like spirits to gather vervain and dill, which was to be given to one whom she desired to bewitch.”

They also believed that by smearing the body over with the juice of this plant, the individual could have whatever he wished, be able to reconcile his most inveterate enemies, cure diseases, and perform other magical operations. They always gathered the plant when neither sun nor moon was visible, and poured honey and honeycomb on the earth as an atonement for robbing it of this precious herb.