THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS 29 



wonderful it is, that it smootheth every tempest. This wort 

 thou shalt take saying thus, ' Wort ricinus T pray that thou be 

 at my songs and that thou turn away hails and hghtning 

 bolts and all tempests through the name of Almighty God who 

 hight thee to be produced ' ; and thou shalt be clean when thou 

 pluckest this herb." — Herb. Ap., 176. 



" Against temptation of the fiend, a wort hight red niolin, 

 red stalk, it waxeth by running water ; if thou hast it on thee and 

 under thy head and bolster and over thy house door the devil 

 may not scathe thee within nor without." — Leech Book, III. 58. 



" To preserve swine from sudden death take the worts 

 lupin, bishopwort, hassuck grass, tufty thorn, vipers bugloss, 

 drive the swine to the fold, hang the worts upon the four sides 

 and upon the door." — Lacnunga, 82. 



The herbs in commonest use as amulets were betony, vervain, 

 peony, yarrow, mugwort and waybroad (plantain). With the 

 exception of vervain, no herb was more highly prized than 

 betony. The treatise on it in the Herbarium of Apuleius is sup- 

 posed to be an abridged copy of a treatise on the virtues of this 

 plant written by Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor 

 Augustus. No fewer than twenty-nine uses of it are given, and 

 in the Saxon translation this herb is described as being " good 

 whether for a man's soul or his body." Vervain was one of the 

 herbs held most sacred by the Druids and, as the herbals of 

 Gerard and Parkinson testify, it was in high repute even as 

 late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has never 

 been satisfactorily identified, though many authorities incline 

 to the belief that it was verbena. In Druidical times libations 

 of honey had to be offered to the earth from which it was dug, 

 mystic ceremonies attended the digging of it and the plant was 

 lifted out with the left hand. This uprooting had always to be 

 performed at the rising of the dog star and when neither the 

 sun nor the moon was shining. Why the humble waybroad 

 should occupy so prominent a place in Saxon herb lore 



