USES OF WORMWOOD 269 



wore a sprig of it against their bodies, and on 

 Midsummer Eve a large bunch of it was burnt, 

 its pungent fumes penetrating the dwelling being 

 held amply sufficient to rid the house for the en- 

 suing year from magic, the evil eye, and malign 

 supernatural agencies of all degrees of power and 

 terror. 



The popular English name has suggested the 

 use of the plant as an anthelmintic, but the Anglo- 

 Saxon name was wermod, a name derived from 

 werian, to ward off, and mod, a maggot, the plant 

 being used to preserve meat from becoming thus 

 attacked. By a curious transference the first half 

 of the word subsequently appropriated the signifi- 

 cance of the second half, and the wer became 

 corrupted into "worm." 



The following extract from Lovell (1665) is fairly 

 representative of the popular esteem in which the 

 plant was long held : " Worme wood," he writes, " is 

 bitter and strengthening. It preserveth and healeth 

 surfeits, resists putrefaction, preserves from moths 

 and gnats. It is good in pultices. It helps them 

 that are strangled with mushroomes, drunk with 

 vinegar, with hony the marks of bruises as also 

 dimme eyes. The spirit is good to cheer hypo- 

 chrondriacall l persons." Cogan, in his " Haven 



1 "Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal are magnified and 

 much prescribed, especially in hypochrondrian melancholy, 

 daily to be used, sod in whey." BURTON, a Anatomy of 

 Melancholy." 



