A Witch's Garden: Poppy

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

Poppy

The poppy, along with its derivative opium, were important ingradients in magical and medical potions of the Middle Ages. Opium was believed to have been

mixed into magical powders for burning, and was an ingredient in Witches' Ointments and laudanum. Opium is rarely used alone. It is often combined with other substnaces (olibanum, cumin, spices, alcohol, snake meat, etc.) and magical plants (Bay Laurel, Belladonna, Betel, Ginseng, Hemp, Henbane, Mandrake, Nutmeg, Nux Vomica, Saffron, Tea, and Thornapple). This is done both to improve its primary effects and to avoid its priciple side-effect: constipation (Rätsch 138).

Opium was also known as "sleeping oil" during the Middle Ages. One ointment called for "Thebaicum, Smyrna paste, dragon's blood, sleeping oil, and Asafoetida" (Rätsch 178).

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A Witch's Garden is copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.
The preceding botanic illustration is from The Virtual Garden Search Engine, part of the Time Life Electronic Encyclopedia.