Hecate's Garden Herblore: Mugwort: artemisia vulgaris

Mugwort: single flowering tip

Hedgerow herb: very common

Parts used: leaves or root

Gathering: the leaves and flowering stalks should be gathered at flowering time, which is usually between July and September.

Actions:

Bitter tonic

Emmenagogue

Nervine tonic

Stimulant

Indications: Whenever a digestive stimulant is called for mugwort should be considered because it not only contains a bitter to stimulate the digestive juices but also carminative oil, which soothes the digestive process and relieves any bloating or trapped wind.

Kloss calls mugwort ‘a safe and excellent medicine for female complaints’. Women of all ages may find mugwort a useful remedy in cases of suppressed menstruation because it can gently aid a return to the normal cycle. It is particularly useful when these symptoms are related to stress, as mugwort is also a mild nervine that is useful for easing tension and mild depression.

Preparation and dosage: Infusion: 1-2 teaspoons of the dried or 2-4 teaspoons of the fresh herb to each cup of boiling water. It is vey important to cover the pot as much of the plants active ingredients are in the steam which must not be allowed to escape the brew. Infuse for 10-15 minutes. A cupful should be drunk three times a day.

Tincture: take 1-4 ml of the tincture three times a day.

Folklore, History and Kitchen Witch: Mugwort is under the dominion of Venus and the strong association of this herb with the activity of the Womb bears this out.

In Anglo-Saxon times mugwort was used in the preparation of a herbal steam to cure those people and animals who had been shot by ‘elf’s arrows’. There are directions for the preparation of this steam, which is a time-honoured method of curing not only elf shot but also any other kind of demonic possession, in the Leech Book of Bald. This text, which is the oldest surviving leech book available, records that: the Anglo-Saxons took a huge quern stone, which had been in the fire on the hearth all day and placed on it the prepared herbs (in this case wallwort and mugwort) the herbs were scattered upon the stone, cold water was poured on to produce a steam and the patient was reeked with it. According to the manuscript the steam should be ‘as hot as he can endure it’.

One cannot fail to see the connection between this burning of plant material, the burning of frankincense in Christian ceremonies, the burning of incenses in neo-pagan rites and the ‘smudging’ of participants and items with the smoke of white sage in First Nation American ceremonies.

Mugwort has also been identified as one of the herbs mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon lay of the nine herbs, which is a poem in praise of their most effective medicines. One surviving manuscript says of mugwort:

“Eldest of worts

Thou hast might for three

And against thirty

For venom availest

For flying vile things,

Mighty against loathed ones

That through the land rove.”

Harleian MS. 585.

The 1526 Grete Herball has an interesting use for mugwort in the nursery…it says: ‘to make a child mery hange a bondell of mugwort or make smoke thereof under the chylde’s bedde for it taketh away annoy for hem’.

Mugwort is one of the most popular herbs used in protection amulets. As early as the fifth century the Herbarium of Apuleius we read of mugwort: “and if a root of this wort be hung over the door of any house then may not any man damage the house.” Pliny wrote of it as an amulet for travellers saying: ‘the traveller or wayfaring man that hath mugwort tied about him feeleth no wearisomeness at all and he who hath it about him can be hurt by no poysonous medecines, nor by any wilde beaste, neither yet by the Sun itselfe’.

Mugwort has been used as an oracular herb John Chambers (1802-1871) reported in his Book of Days that on midsummer’s eve: ‘Young women sought for what they called pieces of coal, but which in reality were certain hard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort, designing to place these under their pillows, that they might dream of their lovers’.

Mugwort is also used by some neo pagans to cleanse and refresh all magical or healing items by either by smudging or by washing the item in a strong infusion. This is especially important to maintain the clarity of items used for scrying such as crystal balls or tarot cards.