Link: Fairywort

I have another herbal post coming up in a bit, but I wanted to share with you all a short post from Morgan Daimler about the "fairywort" charm. We don't know for certain which plant the fairywort may have been, but Daimler feels that the Cowslip (Primula Veris) is a good bet. Check it out, y'all.

The Night-Seeding Fern.

But on St. John's mysterious night,

Sacred to many a wizard spell,

The time when first to human sight

Confest, the mystic fern seed fell.

I'll seek the shaggy, fern clad hill,

Where time has delved a dreary dell,

Befitting best a hermit's cell;

And watch 'mid murmurs muttering stern,

The seed departing from the fern,

Ere watchful demons can convey,

The wonder-working charm away,

And tempt the blows from arm unseen,

Should thoughts unholy intervene.

-anonymous medieval poem.

"Thus in Bohemia it is said that 'on St. John’s Day fern-seed blooms with golden blossoms that gleam like fire.' Now it is a property of this mythical fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame. In Russia they say that if you succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air, and it will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies hidden. In Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve, and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year; then they strew the seed on the ground where they think a treasure is concealed. Tyrolese peasants imagine that hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on Midsummer Eve, and that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with the usual precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface. In the Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on St. John’s night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil himself sometimes brought to them. In Bohemia they say that he who procures the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby the key to all hidden treasures; and that if maidens will spread a cloth under the fast-fading bloom, red gold will drop into it. And in the Tryol and Bohemia if you place fern-seed among money, the money will never decrease, however much of it you spend. Sometimes the fern-seed is supposed to bloom on Christmas night, and whoever catches it will become very rich. In Styria they say that by gathering fern-seed on Christmas night you can force the devil to bring you a bag of money."
-Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough

"The outlines of the young bracken resemble the little oak fern. It flourishes in thickets and open pastures, often with poor soil and scant shade. It is found in all parts of the world, and is said to be the most common of all our North American ferns. In a cross section of the mature stipe superstition sees 'the devil's hoof' and 'King Charles in the oak,' and any one may see or think he sees the outlines of an oak tree. It was the bracken, or eagle fern, as some call it, which was supposed to bear the mysterious 'fern seed,' but only on midsummer eve (St. John's eve)."
-The Fern Lover's Companion

"The ancients, who often paid more attention to received opinion than to the evidence of their senses, believed that fern bore no seed. (Pliny's 'Nat. History,' by Holland, lib. xxvii. ch.9) Our ancestors believed that this plant produced seed which was invisible. Hence, from an extraordinary mode of reasoning, founded on the fantastic doctrine of signatures, they concluded that those who possessed the secret of wearing this seed about them would become invisible. This superstition Shakespear's good sense taught him to ridicule. It was also supposed to seed in a single night, and is called in Browne's Pastorals, 1614:

'The wond'rous one-night seeding ferne.'

". . . In a MS. of the time of Queen Elizabeth, there is the following receipt: 'Gather fearne-seed on Midsomer Eve betweene 11 and 12 noon and weare it about thee continually.' It is said to be also gatherable at night. Fern-seed, according to a passage quoted by Grose, was looked upon as having great magical powers, and must be gathered on Midsummer Eve. A person who once went to gather it reported that the spirits whisked by his ears, and sometimes struck his hat and other parts of his body, and at length, when he thought he had got a good quantity of it, and secured it in papers and a box, when he came home, he found both empty. A respectable countryman at Heston, in Middlesex, informed Bran in June 1793, that when he was a young man, he was often present at the ceremony of catching the fern seed at midnight, on the eve of St. John the Baptist. The attempt, he said, was often unsuccessful, for the seed was to fall into the plate of its own accord, and that too without shaking the plant. Dr. Rowe, of Launcasten, apprised him, October 17th, 1790, of some rites with fern-seed which were still performed at that place. . . .

"Torreblanca, in his 'Demonologia,' suspects those persons of witchcraft who gather fern-seed on this night. 'They prepare fern gathered on this temptestuous night, rue, trifoly, vervain, against magical impostures.' In 'The Pylgremage of Pure Devotyon, newly translayted into Englishe,' is this passage: 'Peradventure they ymagyne the symylytude of a tode to be there, even as we suppose when we cutte the fearne-stalke there to be an egel, and even as chyldren (whiche they se nat indede) in the clowdes, thynke they see dragones spyttyng fyre, and hylles flammynge with fyre, and armyd men encounterynge.' [Peradventure they imagine the similitude of a toad to be there, even as we suppose when we cut the fern-stalk there to be an eagle, and even as children (which they see not indeed) in the clouds, think they see dragons spitting fire, and armed men encountering.]"
-W. Carew Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklores


"As to another large fern (Pteris aquilina), eagle fern, a wide-spread belief prevails, that its cut stalk presents the figure of an eagle, some say a double-headed eagle; and, in fact, such a figure may generally be made out with more or less distinctness in the section. The plant itself, with its two great feathered fronds, has the look of a bird with its wings spread; and, as if to confirm the likeness, the young shoots, just rising out of the ground with their downy covering, may be aptly compared to unfledged nestlings. Pteris, the Greek name of this fern, is an old feminine form of pteron, a wing, and it seems to have been given to the plant with reference to more than its general appearance. The scholiast on Theocritus says that this fern was used for rustic beds, not only for its softness, but also because its smell drove away serpents. This last quality brings it into the same mythical category with the ash and the hazel. It is believed in Thuringia, that if any one carries fern about him, he will be pursued by serpents until he throws it away. In Sweden the plant is called 'snake-bane.'

"The luck-bringing power of the fern is not limited to one species, but belongs to the tribe in general. It resides in the fullest perfection in the seed, the possessor of which may wish for what he will, and the devil must bring it him. In Swabia they say that fern-seed brought by the devil between eleven and twelve on Christmas night enables a man to do as much work as twenty or thirty ordinary men. Such a talisman may be proportionately hard to find, and only on Midsummer Eve can it be gathered from 'the wondrous one-night-seeding fern.'

". . . One of the statements made by the Slovacks agrees with Bivot. They say that whoever comes too near the flowers of fern will be overcome with sleep, and that supernatural beings repulse all who dare to lay hand on the plant.

"Fern-seed has the wonderful property of making people invisible."
-Walter Keating Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore

"Fern Flower," by Snow Violent

"The Mandrake and Fern, like King Solomon's Baharas, are said to shine at night, and to leap about like a Will-o'- the-wisp: indeed, in Thuringia, the Fern is known as Irrkraut, or Misleading Herb, and in Franche Comte this herb is spoken of as causing belated travellers to become light-headed or thunder-struck. The Mandrake-root and the Fern-seed have the magical property of granting the desires of their possessors, and in this respect resemble the Sesame and Luck-flower, which at their owners' request will disclose treasure-caves, open the sides of mountains, clefts of rocks, or strong doors, and in fact render useless all locks, bolts, and bars, at will. . . .

"In Russia, on St. John's Eve, they seek the flower of the Paporot (Aspidium Filix mas), which flowers only at the precise moment of midnight, and will enable the lucky gatherer, who has watched it flower, to realise all his desires, to discover hidden treasures, and to recover cattle stolen or strayed. In the Ukraine it is thought that the gatherer of the Fern-flower will be endowed with supreme wisdom."

"In Dr. Jackson's Works (1673) we read that he once questioned one of his parishioners as to what he saw or heard when he watched the falling of the Fern-seed, whereupon the man informed him that this good seed is in the keeping of Oberon (or Elberich), King of the Fairies, who would never harm anyone watching it. He then said to the worthy doctor, 'Sir, you are a scholar, and I am none. Tell me, what said the angel to our Lady; or what conference had our Lady with her cousin Elizabeth, concerning the birth of St. John the Baptist?' Finding Dofitor Jackson unable to answer him, he told him that 'the angel did foretell John Baptist should be born at that very instant in which the Fern-seed — at other times invisible— did fall : intimating further that this saint of God had some extraordinary vertue from the time or circumstance of his birth.'

"To catch the wonder-working seed, twelve pewter plates must be taken to the spot where the Fern grows : the seed, it is affirmed, will pass through eleven of the plates, and rest upon the twelfth. This is one account : another says that Midsummer night is the most propitious time to procure the mystic Fern-seed, but that the seeker must go bare-footed, and in his shirt, and be in a religious state of mind.

"In ancient days it was thought the demons watched to convey away the Fern-seed as it fell ere anyone could possess themselves of it. A writer on Brittany states that he remembers to have heard recounted by one who had gathered Fern-seed, that whilst he was prosecuting his search the spirits grazed his ears, whistling past them like bullets, knocking off his hat, and hitting him with it all over his body. At last, when he thought that he had gathered enough of the mystic seed, he opened the case he had been putting it into, and lo it was empty. The Devil had evidently had the best of it.

"M. Marmier, in his Legendes des Plantes, writes: — 'It is on Midsummer night that you should go and seek the Fern-seed: he who is fortunate enough to find it will indeed be happy. He will have the strength of twenty men, he will discover precious metals in the bowels of the earth, he will comprehend the present and the future. Up to the present time, however, no one has been able to secure this precious seed. It ripens but for a minute, and the Devil guards it with ferocious vigilance.'

"De Gubernatis, in his Mythologie des Plantes, publishes a communication sent him by the Princess Marie Galitzin Prazorovskaia, on the subject of the flowering of the Fern, the details of which she obtained from a Russian peasant. 'On Midsummer night, before twelve o'clock, with a white napkin, a cross, a Testament, a glass of water, and a watch, one seeks in the forest the spot where the Fern grows; one traces with the cross a large circle ; one spreads the napkin, placing on the cross the Testament and the glass of water. Then one attentively looks at one's watch: at the precise midnight hour the Fern will bloom: one watches attentively; for he who shall see the Fern-seed drop shall at the same time see many other marvels ; for example, three suns, and a full moon, which reveals every object, even the most hidden. One hears laughter; one is conscious of being called; if one remains quiet one will hear all that is happening in the world, and all that is going to happen.'

"In a work by Markevic, the author says : — 'The Fern flowers on Midsummer night at twelve o'clock, and drives away all unclean spirits. First of all it put forth buds, which afterwards expand, then open, and finally change into flowers of a dark red hue. At midnight, the flower opens to its fullest extent, and illuminates everything around. But at that precise moment a demon plucks it from its stalk. Whoever wishes to procure this flower must be in the forest before midnight, locate himself near the Fern, and trace a circle around it. When the Devil approaches and calls, feigning the voice of a parent, sweetheart, &c, no attention must be paid, nor must the head be turned, for if it is, it will remain so. Whoever becomes the happy possessor of the flower has nothing to fear: by its means he can recover lost treasure, become invisible, rule on earth and under water, and defy the Devil. To discover hidden treasure, it is only necessary to throw the flower in the air: if it turns like a star above the Sun, so that it falls perpendicularly in the same spot, it is a sure indication that treasure is concealed there.'

"A very ancient method prescribed for obtaining the mystic Fern-seed is given by Dr. Kuhn. At the Summer solstice, if you shoot at the Sun when it has attained its mid-day height, three drops of blood will fall : they must be gathered up and preserved, for that is the Fern-seed.

"The Franche-Comte peasantry talk of a mysterious plant that misleads travellers. According to a German authority, this plant is no other than the Fern on Midsummer night. As we have seen, on that night the Fern is reputed to flower, and to let fall its seed: he who secures this seed, becomes invisible; but if the unsuspecting traveller passes by the Fern without noticing it, he will be assuredly misled, even although well acquainted with the road. This is the reason why, in Thuringia, they call the Fern Irrkraut, the misleading plant.

"In Poland, there is a popular notion that the plucking of Fern produces a violent thunderstorm.

"In Germany, they call the Fern Walpurgiskraut, the superstition being that, on the Walpurgisnacht, the witches procure this plant in order to render themselves invisible. In Lombardy, there exists a popular superstition akin to this. The witches, they say, are particularly fond of the Fern; they gathered it to rub in their hands during a hailstorm, turning it from the side where the hail falls the thickest.


"The root of the common Male Fern (Filix mas), was an important ingredient in the love-philtres of former days. An old Gaelic bard sings: —

'Twas the maiden's matchless beauty
That drew my heart anigh;
Not the Fern-root potion.
But the glance of her blue eye.

"In olden times the young scroll-like fronds of this Fern were called Lucky Hands, or St. John's Hands, and were believed to protect the possessor from sorcery, witches' spells, and the Evil Eye. In Germany, the Male Fern was formerly called Johanniswurtzel; and both on the Continent, and in England, it was the custom, on Midsummer Eve, to gather this Fern, which was sold to the credulous, who wore it about their persons, and mingled it with the water drunk by their cows, as a protection against all evil spirits, and to ensure good luck."
-Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics

* * *
"Gasping, and with cold sweat oozing on his brow, Plant recollected that they were to shake the fern with a forked rod of witch hazel, and by no means must touch it with their hands. . . . Plant drew his knife, and stepping into a moonlighted bush, soon returned with what was wanted, and then went forward. The green knowe [knoll] , the old oaks, the encircled space, and the fern were now approached ; the latter stiff and erect in a gleamy light. . . . Plant knelt on one knee, and held his dish under the fern. Chirrup held his broad plate next below, and Bangle knelt and rested the skull directly under both on the green sod, the lid being up. Plant said : —

Good St. John, this seed we crave,
We have dared ; shall we have ? 

"A voice responded —

Now the moon is downward starting,
Moon and stars are now departing ;
Quick, quick ; shake, shake ;
He whose heart shall soonest break.
Let him take. 

"They looked, and perceived by a glame that a venerable form, in a loose robe, was near them.

"Darkness came down like a swoop. The fern was shaken; the upper dish flew into pieces ; the pewter one melted ; the skull emitted a cry, and eyes glared in its sockets ; lights broke ; beautiful children were seen walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung mournful and enchanting airs. The men stood terrified and fascinated ; and Bangle, gazing, bade ' God bless 'em.' A crash followed as if all the timber in the kloof was being splintered and torn up ; strange and horrid forms appeared from the thickets ; the men ran as if sped on the wind. They separated and lost each other. . . ."
-Charles Hardwick, Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-Lore, from Samuel Bamford's Passages in the Life of a Radical.

* * *
"It was my happe that since I undertooke the Ministerie, to question an ignorant soule, (whom by undoubted report I had knowne to have been seduced by a teacher of unhallowed arts to make a dangerous experiment) what he saw, or heard, when he watcht the falling of the Ferne-seed at an unseasonable and suspitious houre. Why (quoth he) (fearing (as his briefe reply occasioned me to conjecture) lest I should presse him to tell before company, what he had voluntarily confessed unto a friend in secret, about some foureteene years before) doe you thinke that the devill hath ought to doe with that good seed? No: it is in the keeping of the King of Fayries, and it I know will doe me no harme, although I should watch it againe."
-Dr. Jackson, as quoted in Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits

"We steal as in a castle, cock-sure: we have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible."
 -Shakespeare, Henry IV.

The Remaining Silhouette.

I've quite forgotten where I was intending to go with my Remedial Lore posts. 

It seems like forever ago when had a draft halfway written on the subject of spirit battles in Insular Celtic legend. At some point, I realized that much of it would be incomprehensible to many people...so I decided to start in with some background information on the subjects I cared about and wanted to discuss in more detail. I think I wanted to get to spirit combat eventually, and I still intend to. But the draft is gone now. I'm re-calibrating. 

I'm still not any good at writing posts for Sabbats, particularly in the "light" half of the year. If we're lucky, I may share what I've been learning about midsummer traditions in Spanish-speaking cultures. Indeed, during my absence from this blog, I've been finding myself confronted with all the gaps in my cultural knowledge just about every month. I've always had a bit of trouble with spring festivals, but I never really knew why. Now, I'm beginning to suspect that all my ineffectual attempts to light candles in February, learn the true meaning of Easter, or "bring in the May" were all misplaced: my brain was traveling in altogether the wrong countries.

I don't know how to explain what I've just said. A person has to be careful about implying the wrong thing. But, spirits will follow your family around. They can follow you across the sea, into the jungle, over mountains and valleys. And if you don't give them their dues, they will break your stuff and set it on fire. (And they would be right to do it.) Such pacts are not easily rendered void, and they are not without importance.

Likewise, if you are making obeisances on Mothers' Night, you have to remember who your mothers actually are. Those who made your body. Those who gave you the technology of life.

Ana Mendieta

I have been dreaming of an enormous woman, emerging from the earth like an outcropping of granite. It's strange how, in my dreams, goddesses are never what they are on the Internet. She is a sleeping giant - mysterious, hidden by grass, or so large that you wouldn't even recognize her shape as human at first. On a bed of black basalt, or surrounded by leaves of gold. Nobody knows she's here. When will she wake up?

"A Dream of Angus Oge"

  As he spoke, he paused before a great mound grown over with trees, and around it silver clear in the moonlight were immense stones piled, the remains of an original circle, and there was a dark, low, narrow entrance leading within. He took Con by the hand, and within an instant they were standing in a lofty, cross-shaped cave, built roughly of huge stones.
  "This was my palace. In days past many a one plucked here the purple flower of magic and the fruit of the tree of life."
  "It is very dark," said the child disconsolately. He had expected something different.
  "Nay, but look: you will see it is the palace of a god."
And even as he spoke, a light began to glow and to pervade the cave, and to obliterate the stone walls and the antique hieroglyphics engraved thereon, and to melt the earthen floor into itself like a fiery sun suddenly uprisen within the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound: Light and sound were one; light had a voice, and the music hung glittering in the air.
  "Look, how the sun is ever dawning for us, ever dawning; in the earth, in our hearts, with ever youthful and triumphant voices. Your sun is but a smoky shadow, ours the ruddy and eternal glow; yours is far away, ours is heart and hearth and home; yours is a light without, ours a fire within, in rock, in river, in plain, everywhere living, everywhere dawning, whence also it cometh that the mountains emit their wondrous rays."
  As he spoke he seemed to breathe the brilliance of that mystical sunlight, and to dilate and tower, so that the child looked up to a giant pillar of light, having in his heart a sun of ruddy gold which shed its blinding rays about him, and over his head there was a waving of fiery plumage and on his face an ecstasy of beauty and immortal youth.
  "I am Aengus…men call me the Young. I am the sunlight in the heart, the moonlight in the mind; I am the light at the end of every dream, the voice for ever calling to come away; I am the desire beyond joy or tears. Come with me, come with me: I will make you immortal; for my palace opens into the Gardens of the Sun, and there are the fire-fountains which quench the heart’s desire in rapture."

-from Imaginations and Reveries, by George William Russell.

Sustenance of the Living, and the Dead.

Rice and papaya in the lunch of a sugar worker, 1942.

When I decided to participate in Ms. Graveyard Dirt's Holy Supper Challenge, I thought it would be pretty simple. My family has always made traditional foods for Christmas - these things are not a mystery to me - so the challenge for me was simply to try and involve myself more, and to be mindful of everything's importance.

This post is not going to resemble the others in the lot. For me, ancestor veneration is inextricably tied up with my ethnic identity, with my living family, and with the course of my life. I did not have a large feast, or take beautiful pictures. But many things were crystallized in my mind. It's chaotic and guttural and inadequate...but here is what I can say.

Merry Misrule, from Malekith.

Sons of the Batman [Plus Hemlock + Hector]

"The Sons of the Batman is a magical order dedicated to the spiritual model provided by the world's greatest urban shaman: The Batman."

No further explanation necessary. Become the Bat.

Speaking of comics...since Halloween is approaching, I thought I'd take a moment to plug a couple of graphical works that would be of interest to witchy folks such as ourselves.

The first is an online strip called Hemlock, by Joceline Fenton. It's the story of a wandering witch named Lumi, and a hapless farm boy named Tristan, who gets transformed into a toad and bound to her service. I really, really love this series. Aside from extrapolating from the Baba Yaga stories in some really interesting ways, and regularly featuring one of my favorite subjects (that is, man witches), I find it pretty relatable. Lumi doesn't know the same magics that her peers do (she's learned the older, freakier ways from her familiar), she gets caught in strange pacts with some pretty dubious characters, and always makes sure to put on an enormous, engulfing coat when it's freezing outside. (But I always manage to stay cold, somehow.) Thanks to all that and Fenton's wonderful sense of style, mystery, and humor, I've become a loyal reader. It's like I can feel the icy wind blowing through me, when her witches fly and burst through the snow.

The second is a series from Image comics called Hector Plasm, by Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde. The hero, Hector, is nothing less than a Benandanti, guarding the living from the dead - and the dead from the living - with the help of an ectoplasmic sword. (Also, can I just say: dreamy?) And let's not forget his familiar spirits: a beatnik named Sinner, and a cowboy named Saint, who are not always helpful but usually have okay advice. Unlike your typical "paranormal investigator" dynamic, this comic is much less about interrogating people at breakfast tables and drinking establishments, and much more about finding ghosts and using swords. (I know what I prefer.) You can read a one-shot that appeared in Pop Gun #1 on the artist's blog. Or, you can check out this beautiful and very amusing featurette the creators put together for the Halloween season, called Hector contre le Dance Macabre, in which Hector encounters the Dance of Death, and is swept up in the madness for awhile. It's a delight to watch. (Mild warning for boobies.) The author also has a tumblog where he discusses myths and folktales on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (Guy really knows his history, too. Instafollow!)