But there’s another type of folklore tripping that I accidentally stumbled upon, which I like to call “post factum tripping”, in which we only realise we’ve engaged with a site associated with legends after the fact.

So it was with me, after I went to the Sewingshields Crag section of Hadrian’s Wall on Sunday. I’d actually gone to take photos for my forthcoming book in which I discuss the legend that King Arthur sleeps in a cavern beneath the crag, but then spotted this small lake just north of the Wall.

And of course, the rest of the post lies beyond the (pay)wall if you’re not a paid supporter. Becoming a supporter grants access to the articles and bonus episodes I post every month, and it also helps me to afford to keep writing these articles in the first place. Hours of research goes into them! Anyway, onwards we go…

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The plants can grow to 2.5m, and they’re commonly found in the British countryside. The whole plant is toxic. According to Mrs Burke’s Language of Flowers dictionary, hemlock meant ‘You will be my death’ (1867: 28).

The plant appears in history, but how does it appear in folklore, if at all?

Remember, this article is for entertainment purposes. It does not provide or constitute medical advice, and any interaction you have with these plants is at your own risk. I’d advise you to look but not touch!

A Poisonous Plant

Poison hemlock appears across a range of territories, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, North Africa, Australia, and New Zealand (Mitich 1998: 195). It’s considered a weed in these areas. Poison hemlock favours waste ground, but it also grows in hedgerows, along road sides and river banks, as well as in pastures.

The ancient Greeks used hemlock for certain executions since the death could take several hours. When drunk in wine, hemlock begins to work in the extremities before reaching the trunk and the vital organs it contains. Death occurs when the poison reaches the lungs and paralyses the respiratory system. The philosopher Socrates endured such a death (Mitcheson 2024: 62).

In folk belief, plants growing in full sunshine were the most toxic (Baker 2011: 74). This bears out in toxicology, since higher concentrations of alkaloids appear in the seeds and fruits of plants grown in hot, dry areas (Mitich 1998: 195).

One of the many problems with hemlock is that people can mistake it for wild carrot, parsley, and wild chervil - red spots on its stem give hemlock away (Mitcheson 2024: 62). As with all plants, if you’re not 100% sure of what you’re looking at, leave it alone.

Its Names

You sometimes run into water hemlock, Oenanthe crocata, which is a cousin in the Apiaceae family. We’re concerned here with poison hemlock, Conium maculatum. The Conium part of its name comes from konos, a Greek word meaning a spinning top. Apparently, this referred to the vertigo caused by the plant (Baker 2011: 74).

According to Maud Grieve, ‘Hemlock’ comes from the Old English words hem (border, shore) and leác (leek or plant) (1995-2026).

The fact that one of poison hemlock’s nicknames is ‘Herb Bennet’ shows exactly why botanical names were ever necessary in the first place. Botanists like William Turner collected and codified the names in the 16th century so apothecaries knew they were using the plants specified by doctors in their prescriptions.

But ‘herb bennet’ is also a folk name of wood avens (Geum urbanum), which is actually part of the rose family. Wood avens is decidedly not toxic!

Some of this confusion may have arisen because both the avens and hemlock (and valerian) were assigned to St Benedict (Folkard 1892: 53). St Benedict is perhaps better known as the father of Western monasticism, and Pope Paul VI proclaimed him Europe’s patron saint in 1964. But more interestingly for our purposes, he was a protector against poisoning—perhaps because someone tried to poison him during his project of monastic reformation!

Richard Folkard also suggests that the plant got its name because the leaves were supposedly cold enough to kill. He felt this might account for its name, Herba benedicta, or Herb Bennet (1892: 369). It seems the confusion arose because wood avens and valerian were supposed to be St Benedict’s herb to denote their apparent use as antidotes against poison (Folkard 1892: 374).

The plant also gained the nickname ‘Kecksies’ in late summer when the dead stalks rattled in the wind. The nickname referred to the dry and hollow stalks of plants in the carrot family (1892: 370). In some areas, Kecksies became ‘Kex’.

Medicinal Use

Nicholas Culpeper notes that any use of the herb should be external, because it is “of a very dangerous quality, consequently must not be applied internally” (1789: 201). He recommended it for use on tumours or swellings, applying the roasted root wrapped in double-layered wet paper to gout.

That said, there is a possibility it was used internally for medicinal purposes, though no records survive to report its efficacy.

Archaeologists found a clump of 574 seeds including opium poppy, henbane, and hemlock in a cellar at Scotland’s medieval hospital at Soutra Aisle.

Dr Brian Moffat explained there are medieval recipes including the three plants, and all were for anaesthetics given before surgery. The seeds were dated to 1300-1320, and as this period included the Wars of Independence, the theory prevails that the surgery needing anaesthetic included amputations (Connor 1993).

Toxins

Beyond this, it’s difficult to find uses for the plant given its toxicity, but in the past, hemlock juice was given as an antidote to strychnine (Mitich 1998: 196). Elsewhere, people mixed the juice with betony and fennel seed to apply to dog bites (Mitich 1998: 196).

The plant’s main alkaloid is coniine, a neurotoxin that disrupts the nervous system and causes muscle failure (Mitcheson 2024: 62).

Children once used dead or dried hemlock stems as pea shooters, and they ended up with burns around the mouth from the poison still in the stem (Mitcheson 2024: 62).

Most animals avoid eating it, and poisoning is more likely if they eat hay or silage contaminated with hemlock. The mature plant apparently gives off an unpleasant mousy odour, which may help deter animals from eating it.

Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) is sometimes referred to as ‘Mother Die’, accompanied by the admonition that if you took it home, your mother would die. This is more likely because it looks like poison hemlock, so keeping children away from any white-flowered Apiaceae plants would be a good idea.

Hemlock and Literature

Hemlock apparently represented the plants of hell in Germany, appearing as a funereal plant, while England considered it a witch’s plant (1892: 369). It certainly shows this link with witchcraft in literature.

Shakespeare featured hemlock in Macbeth, since the witches use hemlock in their brew, along with yew (Kenicer 2020: 96). They specify they dug it up in the dark, and according to some lore, the plant was more toxic or powerful during a full moon (Mitcheson 2024: 62).

In Ben Jonson’s ‘Masque of Queens’, a group of witches come together to discuss what they’ve been up to. One of them describes plucking “hemlock, henbane, adder’s-tongue, nightshade, moonwort, libbard’s-bane” (Folkard 1892: 93). I’m sure fun times were had by all involved.

Adder’s tongue might refer to either the adder’s-tongue fern or the adder’s-tongue spearwort. The former isn’t toxic, and the latter is, being a member of the buttercup family, so I suspect they meant the latter. Moonwort is a fern, and Libbard’s bane is actually Leopard’s bane, which is mildly poisonous. Quite the collection of plants, then.

Scottish poet Thomas Campbell used hemlock to build a suitably gothic setting for his poem ‘Lines on the Grave of a Suicide’ in 1801.

“Nor will the lantern’d fishermen at eve
Launch on that water by the witches’ tower,
Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave
Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower
For spirits of the dead at night’s enchanted hour”
(Campbell 1801: 231)

He wrote the poem after he encountered the unclaimed body of a victim of suicide on a riverbank in Germany. Here, both hellebore and hemlock are conjured for atmosphere, to help paint the picture of a lonely and tragic spot. The fact that hellebore and hemlock flower at different times of the year is unexplained.

Flying Ointment

As we’ve explored in the preceding two episodes, poisonous plants often appear as ingredients in witches’ flying ointment. The ointment itself has been the subject of some debate, although I think most people agree that no one actually applied this ointment to physically fly anywhere. Most writers describe how the combination of plants was more likely to provide the sensation of flying through its hallucinogenic properties. The ointment’s ingredients vary almost as much as how accusers assumed people applied it.

In the 1500s, a Spanish physician named Andrés de Laguna made an ointment containing hemlock, nightshade, henbane, and mandrake. After coating the local executioner’s wife in it, he watched as she fell into a deep sleep for 36 hours. When woken up, she was rather annoyed at being disturbed from what sounded like a delightful dream (Lawrence 2020: 177).

What do we make of this folklore of hemlock?

Like other poisonous plants, there is less folklore than you might imagine about poison hemlock. Most lore revolves around its name, its historical uses, or lore about poisonings, both accidental and otherwise. Perhaps for the best, most records of the plant’s use come from literature, rather than folklore.

Despite its association with witches, it is less often discussed in relation to spells or poisons, compared to plants like mandrake and deadly nightshade. Where it does appear in such associations, it’s more likely because of the “poison = bad” and “witch = bad” equivalence.

Don’t ingest any part of the plant. While I normally advise against growing poisonous plants for their toxicity, it’s best to avoid growing poison hemlock for two reasons. First is its poisonous nature. Second, it seeds readily and can be a pain to get rid of!

Have you ever come across poison hemlock? Let me know below!

References

Baker, Margaret (2011 [1969]), Discovering the Folklore of Plants, 3rd edition, Oxford: Shire Classics (aff link).

Burke, L (1867), The illustrated language of flowers, London: G. Routledge & Sons.

Campbell, Thomas (1863), The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge.

Connor, Steve (1993), ‘A day in the life of a medieval hospital’, The Independent, https://web.archive.org/web/20151019121943/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/science-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-medieval-hospital-on-a-windswept-hill-in-scotland-archaeologists-are-1484182.html. Accessed 9 August 2026.

Culpeper, Nicholas (1789), Culpeper’s English physician; and complete herbal … Illustrated with notes and observations, critical and explanatory, London: E. Sibly.

Dietz, S. Theresa (2020), The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History, New York: Wellfleet Press.

Folkard, Richard (1892), Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, second edition, London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026), ‘Hemlock’, Botanical.com, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/hemloc18.html. Accessed 9 August 2026.

Inkwright, Fez (2021), Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants, London: Liminal 11 Press.

Kenicer, Gregory J. (2020), Plant Magic, Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Lawrence, Sandra (2020), The Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine, London: Welbeck (affiliate link).

Mitcheson, Fiona (2024), A-Z of Poisonous Plants: The deadly, dangerous & downright bizarre, Peterborough: Jarrold Publishing

The deadly nature of belladonna was noted as far back as 1550 BCE (Inkwright 2021: 85). It’s not a particularly common plant in the wild, although it does prefer woodland.

Yet it’s not necessarily a plant you might rush out to grow. You might also be hard-pressed to use it for meaningful communication. According to Mrs Burke’s Language of Flowers dictionary, nightshade meant ‘truth’ (1867: 42). In the same book, belladonna is listed with the meaning ‘silence’ (1867: 11).

So how does this plant appear in folklore, besides its links to the Devil and witchcraft?

But before we delve into the folklore and legends of these plants, I’d like to remind you that this article is for entertainment purposes and it does not provide nor constitute medical advice. Any interaction you have with these plants is at your own risk. I’d advise you to look but not touch!

A Poisonous Plant

The plant appears in history at various points, and rarely for anything good. According to rumour, Lucia Drusilla poisoned the Roman emperor Augustus, her husband, by spiking figs with deadly nightshade (Brown 2018: 100).

Nicholas Culpeper included deadly nightshade in his Complete Herbal, if only to warn people off the plant. He advises that the plant shouldn’t be allowed to grow where children play due to the berries (1789: 269).

Richard Folkard noted the deadly nightshade berry bore the nickname “the Devil’s berry”, while the rest of the plant was “Death’s Herb”. He further explained that the berries were once called “Dwale-berry”, from a Danish word, dvale, meaning a deadly trance (1892: 85). In more modern translations, dvale means hibernation or dormancy.

He also resorts to the doctrine of signatures to explain what different plants might be used for, based on what they look like. Using this logic, the black or spotted flowers of the nightshade could cause “bad dreams, excite giddiness, vertigo, and epilepsy” (1892: 157). We’ll ignore the fact that the flowers are often purple.

Most poisonous berries are bitter to deter ingestion, with both the bitterness and the toxicity used by the plant to ward off predators. In deadly nightshade, the berries are sweet to encourage ingestion, and the hapless creature that eats them becomes the delivery mechanism for the seeds (Inkwright 2021: 86).

Earlier herbalists understood the dangers of the plant, and mostly warned people off using it. However, in the 19th century, chemists began to understand the compounds found in the plant, and it made its way into mainstream medicine. Scopolamine, hyoscine, and atropine all affect the parasympathetic nervous system, which explains why they induce hallucinations. Atropine also acts as a muscle relaxant (Kenicer 2020: 108). There is a very small margin between a therapeutic and a toxic dose.

Its Names

Deadly nightshade’s botanical name, Atropa, comes from Atropos, the third of the Greek Fates. Her sister Clotho measured the thread of life at birth, Lachesis wove the thread throughout a person’s life, and Atropos cut the thread at the end of their life.

It was also sacred to Bellona, a Roman war goddess (Lawrence 2020: 184).

Its other name, belladonna, is believed to come from the Italian, ‘beautiful lady’. There was a belief that the plant would create visions of a beautiful but dangerous temptress, leading to its name (Mitcheson 2024: 36).

There is another explanation. In the 1500s, Venetian women believed that dilated pupils made them more attractive, so they dropped belladonna into their eyes to dilate the pupils. It’s not as mad as it sounds. The pupils naturally dilate when the person is aroused, so it would serve to make the ladies look more interested than they perhaps were. Quite handy if you’re after a husband. You had to be careful how much you used and how often because too much could cause madness. Yet opticians still used it during eye surgery into the 20th century (Inkwright 2021: 87).

That said, there’s no proof the trend ever made it beyond Venice. Instead, it might comes from ‘buona donna’, or good girl, as a reference to the folk healers the poor used when physicians were too expensive (Inkwright 2021: 87). Michael Brown also noted that having had belladonna used on him during eye surgery, his vision became blurry, and theorised that women used it to make men look more attractive (2018: 101).

The Devil’s Herb and Witches

At one stage, people believed the Devil himself tended deadly nightshade, and he did so on each night of the year, except Walpurgisnacht. That meant people could only safely dig it up between April 30 and May 1. He left behind a fearsome monster to guard it, but the monster could be placated with fresh bread (Inkwright 2021: 89).

Alternatively, you could release a black hen, which the Devil would chase, leaving the nightshade unguarded (Baker 2011: 108).

Parents told their children that those caught picking the berries would meet the Devil face to face. They needed a way to discourage their children from eating the berries given their sweetness (Lawrence 2020: 184).

Much as we saw with aconite last week, deadly nightshade was also associated with Hecate in her role as the goddess of witches (Folkard 1892: 91). Richard Folkard further added nightshade to the list of “most esteemed herbs” for witches, alongside cuckoo pint, henbane, mandrake, and even fern (1892: 95).

In classical accounts, deadly nightshade is sometimes confused with mandrake. While mandrake has been moved into the Mandragora genus, it was once called Atropa mandragora (Kenicer 2020: 107). This is why getting plant names right is so important, something botanist William Turner worked on!

Useful Belladonna

Despite its toxicity, deadly nightshade did have some uses.

People apparently made it into a collar for their cattle to avert the Evil Eye. You could also lift an enchantment from a person by putting a wreath of nightshade on their head (Baker 2011: 108). It was believed to grant the ability to see ghosts (Inkwright 2021: 88).

Nightshade was also mixed with mandrake and hellebore to make an early surgical anaesthetic (Brown 2018: 100). The presence of hellebore apparently acted to prompt the patient to vomit following the operation – assuming they woke up! This mixture was also called dwale.

Atropine, one of the compounds from the plant, was used as an antidote to nerve gas poisoning (Stewart 2010: 33). Apparently, atropine was also used as an antidote to foxglove poisoning (Gillam 2008: 10). Whether it worked is up for debate.

It was even used to counteract the effects of Novichok during the 2018 Salisbury poisonings (Inkwright 2021: 88).

Flying Ointment

Witches’ flying ointment has been the subject of some debate, although I think most people agree that no one actually applied this ointment to physically fly anywhere. Most writers describe how the combination of plants was more likely to provide the sensation of flying through its hallucinogenic properties. This helps to explain why some people used deadly nightshade in spells to “induce second sight” (Baker 2011: 107).

Reginald Scot included deadly nightshade in a recipe for flying ointment in his Discoverie of Witchcraft. The recipe also included water parsnip, calamus, potentilla, olive oil, and bat’s blood (Kenicer 2020: 107).

The ointment’s ingredients vary almost as much as how accusers assumed people applied it. One theory is that people smeared the ointment onto broom handles to apply it to the genitals, though other writers have debunked this, seeing it as part of the anti-witch propaganda. I can’t help thinking the threat of splinters alone would put people off that method.

In the 1500s, a Spanish physician named Andrés de Laguna made an ointment containing hemlock, nightshade, henbane, and mandrake. After coating the local executioner’s wife in it, he watched as she fell into a deep sleep for 36 hours. When woken up, she was rather annoyed by being disturbed from what sounded like a delightful dream (Lawrence 2020: 177). The contents of the dream did little to persuade people that flying ointment was entirely innocent!

What do we make of this folklore of deadly nightshade?

Like other poisonous plants, there is less folklore than you might imagine about deadly nightshade. What lore exists is designed to warn people away from its use, particularly given its attractive-looking berries.

Its links with the Devil become a means to keep people safe, while its association with witches perhaps refers to its hallucinogenic properties. Yet the plant has still yielded useful compounds that serve a purpose in medicine, as long as they’re used by trained professionals.

Nightshades as a family go far beyond the deadly variety, with bitter, black, and woody nightshade being beyond our scope here. They live on every continent except Antarctica. But like many plants, we should enjoy deadly nightshade from a distance – if at all.

Don’t ingest any part of the plant, and treat it with the utmost respect.

Do you grow deadly nightshade?

References

Baker, Margaret (2011 [1969]), Discovering the Folklore of Plants, 3rd edition, Oxford: Shire Classics (aff link).

Binney, Ruth (2018), Plant Lore and Legend, Hassocks: Rydon (aff link).

Brown, Michael (2018), Death in the Garden: Poisonous Plants & Their Use Throughout History, Barnsley: White Owl.

Burke, L (1867), The illustrated language of flowers, London: G. Routledge & Sons.

Culpeper, Nicholas (1789), Culpeper’s English physician ; and complete herbal … Illustrated with notes and observations, critical and explanatory, London: E. Sibly.

Folkard, Richard (1892), Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, second edition, London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Gillam, Fred (2008), Poisonous Plants in Great Britain, Glastonbury: Wooden Books (aff link).

Inkwright, Fez (2021), Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants, London: Liminal 11 Press.

Kenicer, Gregory J. (2020), Plant Magic, Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Lawrence, Sandra (2020), The Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine, London: Welbeck (affiliate link).

Mitcheson, Fiona (2024), A-Z of Poisonous Plants: The deadly, dangerous & downright bizarre, Peterborough: Jarrold Publishing.

Stewart, Amy (2010), Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities, Portland, OR: Timber Press.

This is also a paid supporter article. Paid supporters can expect an exclusive article and a bonus episode every month, and support helps to cover things like web hosting, podcast hosting, and also my time. These articles take hours to research, write, edit, etc., and I do everything the old-fashioned, human-authored way! So if you’d like extra content, or you just want to support the work I do, then feel free to become a paid supporter.

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The Anglo-Saxons apparently called it ‘thung’, which meant ‘poison plant’ (Gilliam 2008: 4). The plant also gained the nicknames ‘helmet flower’, ‘friarscap’, ‘old wife’s hood’ and ‘granny’s nightcap’ (Baker 2011: 9).

Given how horrifically poisonous the plant is, it has few medicinal or even magical uses. Yet it still appears in folklore and legend, so let’s explore some of the tales of aconite…

But before we delve into the folklore and legends of these plants, I’d like to remind you that this article is for entertainment purposes and it does not provide nor constitute medical advice. Any interaction you have with these plants is at your own risk. I’d advise you to look but not touch!

Aconite’s Name

Aconite is apparently named after Aconitus Hill, where Hercules fought Cerberus, the guard dog of the Underworld. As part of his 12 labours, he dragged Cerberus out of the Underworld and into daylight, where the dog gnashed the teeth in his three heads. Where the saliva hit the ground, it took root and gave rise to aconite (Mitcheson 2024: 19).

In another legend, Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, pulled the plant out of Cerberus’ saliva. It’s also associated with Hecate through its appearance at crossroads, something over which she presides. Elsewhere in Greek myth, you may have heard the legend in which Arachne boasted she was a better weaver than the goddess Athena. Athena challenged her to a weaving competition, and in many versions of the myth, Arachne won the challenge. In response, Athena threw aconite juice over Arachne, which turned her into a spider (Lawrence 2020: 187).

Theseus was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, yet also enjoyed royal lineage through his mother’s husband, Aegeus, king of Athens. Theseus travelled around Greece before returning to Athens, where his stepmother, Medea, realised he would displace her son in the line of succession. When sending him to face the Marathonian Bull didn’t work, she switched to poison, giving him wine laced with aconite. Fortunately for Theseus, King Aegeus noticed that Theseus carried the sword Aegeus had left for his infant son, and knocked the cup from Theseus’ hands. Medea fled (Dodds 2022: 143).

Monkshood

Monkshood is the common name for the Aconitum napellus variety. It gets its name due to the shape of the flowers, which apparently look like monks’ hoods. Monkshood is native to western and central Europe.

In the Victorian language of flowers, monkshood represents chivalry and knight errantry (Burke 1867: 40). While a link with chivalry might seem odd for such a poisonous plant, the flowers’ helmet shape made people think of knights. It is also sometimes called ‘Devil’s Helmet’, which sounds like a metal band waiting to happen.

Richard Folkard resorts to the doctrine of signatures to explain what different plants might be used for. Using this logic, monkshood “indicates in a most marked manner its poisonous and virulent nature, for its flower represents the skull of a dead man” (1892: 157).

Wolfsbane

You’ll often see monkshood, wolfsbane and aconite all given as synonyms for the same plant. While aconite refers to the genus, Wolfsbane is the common name of Aconitum lycoctonum, which is related to monkshood.

Wolfsbane is also sometimes called foxbane, badger’s bane, St Christopher’s herb, and harebane (RHS). Its flowers can be purple or yellow. Wolfsbane is native to central and eastern Europe.

Its name, wolfsbane, came from its use in dispatching wolves. People laced meat with aconite roots and left it for wolves (Mitcheson 2024: 20). One medieval recipe advised adding powdered aconite and toasted cheese to a flour paste, and leaving it near rat holes to dispose of your rat infestation (Brown 2018: 159).

According to legend, hunters rubbed their arrows in aconite before hunting wolves. Those hunting whales with harpoons in Alaska used it for similar reasons (Lawrence 2020: 187).

Some writers even claim the Nazis used it to poison bullets during the Second World War! (Brown 2018: 159) This also sounds incredibly fiddly so it’s more likely wartime propaganda.

It also appears as the herb of choice to ward off the Count in Dracula (1931). Dracula turns into a wolf in the novel (1897), so that makes sense.

Some scholars think it was aconite that the Viking warriors, the berserkers, took to allegedly become werewolves (Lawrence 2020: 187). This is highly unlikely due to its effects in causing dizziness, heart problems, and stomach pain. That said, the fact it produced numbness when rubbed into the skin might have been vaguely helpful for warriors. I’m just not sure that hyping up a bunch of warriors on a poisonous plant and sending them into battle was a good idea.

Murder Weapon

On the island of Ceos in ancient Greece, the state used wolfsbane to poison anyone deemed of no use to it (Mitcheson 2024: 20).

The Romans banned its cultivation in gardens in 117AD after a spate of monkshood murders (Baker 2011: 9).

Such was the fear of poisoning by the plant that Ovid called aconite “Mother-in-Law’s Poison”. Monk Walafrid Strabo wrote that you should take horehound if you suspected your stepmother had added aconite to your food or drink (Brown 2018: 160).

In 2009, Lakhvir Singh poisoned her ex, Lakhvinder Cheema, using aconitine from monkshood. According to Michael Brown, she used the Aconitum ferox species that grows in India (2018: 160). Cheema had broken up with Singh in favour of a younger woman, but Singh continued to clean his house for him. She put powdered aconite root in a curry sitting in the fridge. Cheema and his new partner ate the curry and soon fell ill. Cheema’s sister whisked them to hospital. Cheema died within an hour, but his partner made a full recovery. Singh was convicted of murder in 2010 (Mitcheson 2024: 21).

It was the first aconite poisoning in England since 1882. In that murder, Dr George Henry Lamson murdered his young brother-in-law to gain access to his inheritance via his sister. He poisoned the boy with an aconite-laced Dundee cake. Lamson claimed he chose aconite because someone told him it was undetectable. Advances in forensic science meant the poison was swiftly identified and he was convicted and executed (Brown 2018: 161).

Not all monkshood deaths were intentional. In 1842, a woman in Lambeth mistook monkshood root for horseradish and ate it with roast beef. She died three hours later. Meanwhile, a boy confused the leaves for parsley and died after eating it (Binney 2018: 114).

Aconitine

The primary alkaloid in the aconitum genus is aconitine, which causes a range of symptoms, including burning in the mouth, a numb throat, burning lips and mouth, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle spasms, or paralysis in the respiratory system (Mitcheson 2024: 19). Ingesting any of the plant can be fatal.

While herbal folklore claims foxglove provides an antidote to aconite poisoning, medicine does not support this (Kunz 2010).

It’s difficult to find medicinal uses for monkshood since it’s often considered the most dangerous plant in Europe. It’s not impossible though: one remedy saw it used to cure scorpion stings or to stop someone becoming a werewolf (Gilliam 2008: 4).

Flying Ointment

Witches’ flying ointment has been the subject of some debate, although I think most people agree that no one actually applied this ointment to physically fly anywhere. Most writers describe how the combination of plants was more likely to provide the sensation of flying through its hallucinogenic properties.

Monkshood was thought to be an ingredient in the flying ointment used by witches. One recipe included poplar, soot, fern, a plant called eleoselenium, and fat from children. Francis Bacon reported a recipe including monkshood, potentilla, wild celery, and wheat flour, along with children’s fat (Kenicer 2020: 105).

The ointment’s ingredients vary almost as much as how accusers assumed people applied it. One theory is that people smeared the ointment onto broom handles to apply it to the genitals, though other writers have debunked this, seeing it as part of the anti-witch propaganda. I can’t help thinking the threat of splinters alone would put people off that method.

What do we make of this folklore of aconite?

Much of the lore rightly revolves around aconite’s poisonous nature. The lack of magical uses to ward off evil is telling, as if people simply didn’t want to handle it if they didn’t need to. Even Nicholas Culpeper warned people away from trying to use monkshood (1789: 71).

Instead, we find a lot of historical uses for the plant within murder or animal control, rather than outright lore. What lore exists tends to exaggerate, such as the use of the plant by the berserkers, or lies in the realm of myth.

There are some reported uses of aconite within herbal medicine, yet it’s also difficult to find an original source recommending its use. This is a plant steeped in its own reputation, and for once, it’s probably best to listen to the reputation and leave well alone.

Don’t ingest any part of the plant, and the RHS even recommend handling it with gloves if you grow it in your garden. This is definitely a plant to treat with the utmost respect.

Do you grow aconite?

References

Baker, Margaret (2011 [1969]), Discovering the Folklore of Plants, 3rd edition, Oxford: Shire Classics (aff link).

Binney, Ruth (2018), Plant Lore and Legend, Hassocks: Rydon (aff link).

Brown, Michael (2018), Death in the Garden: Poisonous Plants & Their Use Throughout History, Barnsley: White Owl (aff link).

Burke, L (1867), The illustrated language of flowers, London: G. Routledge & Sons.

Culpeper, Nicholas (1789), Culpeper’s English physician ; and complete herbal … Illustrated with notes and observations, critical and explanatory, London: E. Sibly.

Dodds, Liz (2022), The Secret Language of Flowers, London: DK.

Folkard, Richard (1892), Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, second edition, London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Gillam, Fred (2008), Poisonous Plants in Great Britain, Glastonbury: Wooden Books (aff link).

Kenicer, Gregory J. (2020), Plant Magic, Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Kunz, Alexander; Marty, Hans; Nohl, Felix; Schmitt, Wolfgang; Schiemann, Uwe (2010), ‘Mixed intoxication with Aconitum nappellans (monkshood) and Digitalis grandiflora (large yellow foxglove)’, Medical Science Monitor, 16 (8), pp. 103-105.

Lawrence, Sandra (2020), The Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine, London: Welbeck (affiliate link).

Mitcheson, Fiona (2024), A-Z of Poisonous Plants: The deadly, dangerous & downright bizarre, Peterborough: Jarrold Publishing.

RHS (no date), ‘Aconitum lycoctonum’, RHS, https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/33788/aconitum-lycoctonum/details. Accessed 3 August 2026.

Even their name is evocative, with a smattering of legends to explain where ‘foxglove’ came from. Yet as pretty as the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is, the plant is also poisonous. It’s great for bees, but less so for us.

At least, not if we don’t need the toxins it provides the pharmaceutical industry for heart medicine!

But given their host of folk names, association with witches, and appearance in legend, let’s dig into the folklore of foxgloves.

Remember, this article is for entertainment purposes. It does not provide or constitute medical advice, and any interaction you have with these plants is at your own risk. I’d advise you to look but not touch!

The Botany

Foxgloves are native to the UK and Europe, and prefer dappled shade and rich soil. Most foxgloves self-seed so there is a ready supply of them.

Foxgloves produce a spike of flowers, and the flowers at the bottom open first. That’s why you often see foxglove heads with bells at the top, but nothing further down. They tend to flower around midsummer.

They’re great for pollinators, something Wordsworth noticed in 1802:

“Bees that soar for bloom
High as the highest peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells” (Wordsworth n.d.).

Tiny hairs line the insides of their bell-shaped flowers to help bees crawl inside. Insects might shelter inside them during rain, though animals don’t generally eat them, given they’re poisonous. In one legend, the mottled markings on the plant appeared as a warning of its poisonous nature (Grieve 1995-2026).

In the Victorian language of flowers, in which people allegedly sent messages to each other based on the meanings assigned to flowers, the foxglove represents insincerity (Burke 1867: 24). That’s because it hides a poisonous heart behind a pretty facade.

Richard Folkard includes an ancient floral vocabulary in his book of plant lore and includes foxglove for ‘adulation’ (1892: 185). I’m not entirely sure where this vocabulary came from, or how widespread its use was, but the difference between ‘adulation’ and ‘insincerity’ was stark.

Folk Names

The plant is also known as fairy thimbles, witches’ gloves, and dead man’s bells. According to folklore, if you hear the bells ring, you’ll die soon (Baker 2011: 61).

Other names included fairy cap, fairy petticoat, witch’s thimbles, Gloves of Our Lady, Bloody Fingers, and Virgin’s Glove (Gray 2015: 104; Grieve 1995-2026). In Ireland, it was called lusmore.

In some sources, the name ‘fox glove’ was just a misspelling of ‘folk’s glove’ (Binney 2018: 31).

Yet JRR Tolkien dismisses such links between ‘fox’ and ‘folk’s’. He wrote a letter to Christopher Tolkien in 1944 in which he described how the ‘fox’ part had always been part of the name, contrary to the titles that swap ‘fox’ for ‘folks’ in reference to the fairies. Tolkien notes that the plant was called foxes glófa in Anglo-Saxon, and suggested the association with foxes depended on a lost fable (Kenicer 2020: 91).

There is certainly a range of stories involving foxes and the plants. In one story, fairies apparently taught foxes to ring the bells, warning other foxes of hunters in the area (Binney 2018: 31). Yet another legend sees foxes asking God for protection, so he added foxgloves to woodlands and fields. If the flowers rang, the foxes knew hunters approached (Gray 2015: 104).

Sometimes, the foxgloves were there to help the foxes hunt, not avoid hunters. Another tale claimed that the fairies gave the flowers to the foxes to wear over their paws so the hens in the hen house wouldn’t hear them coming (Binney 2018: 31).

The ‘Digitalis’ part of its botanical name comes from ‘Digitabulum’, which was a thimble or finger protector (Grieve 1995-2026).

Medicinal Uses of Foxglove

Much of its appearance in old herbals sees it mostly used externally, with its bruised leaves applied to sores and ulcers, or added to an ointment. One remedy sees it boiled in wine as an expectorant, but this would be toxic if tried (Grieve 1995-2026).

It was also believed to be useful in treating the ‘King’s Evil’ (scrofula). Scrofula is actually a condition in which tuberculosis bacteria affect parts of the body besides the lungs, particularly the lymph nodes. Nowadays, it is treated with antibiotics. Foxgloves were also called throatwort for the plant’s use in treating throat infections (Gilliam 2008: 30).

More famously, foxgloves provide chemicals for heart medicine. English doctor Will Withering discovered the plant’s properties from a herbalist in the 1770s. He originally developed a cure for dropsy using digitalis, but digitalin (from the leaves) is now used in heart medicine (Laws 2010: 64). A carved foxglove decorated Withering’s memorial after he died in 1799 (Baker 2011: 60).

It’s thought that the ancient Egyptians first discovered the power of digitalis to strengthen the heartbeat (Binney 2018: 31). But dose matters. The cardiac glycosides present in foxgloves can lead to heart arrhythmias within a few hours of ingestion (Mitcheson 2024: 75).

Foxgloves have so much digitoxin in the stems that drinking the water from a vase containing foxgloves could kill a person (Inkwright 2021: 110). According to folklore, digitoxin can also be used to treat aconite poisoning, and we’ll look at aconite next week, though this has not been backed by science. There is no known antidote to foxglove poisoning (Mitcheson 2024: 75).

Magical and Mundane Uses of Foxgloves

Poor women in Derbyshire apparently drank foxglove tea in pursuit of its intoxicating effects, although this led to cases of accidental poisoning (Folkard 1892: 345).

Despite its toxicity, planting foxgloves in the garden may grant your house protection by driving away evil spirits. It is also said to attract fairies and according to legend, the white spots inside each bell are marks left by fairies (Inkwright 2019: 71). In some stories, the bending of the stalk indicates a fairy is hiding inside one of the flowers.

But don’t pick the foxglove and bring it inside, as it’ll annoy the fairies. In a cute turn of events, they apparently wear the flowers as hats (Dietz 2020: 77). That said, that may refer to a single story in which that happens, since the Shefro, a fairy in Ireland, apparently wore a foxglove flower as a hat (Folkard 1892: 344).

At one point, people in north Wales used the leaves to darken lines on stone floors to give them a mosaic appearance (Grieve 1995-2026). Alternatively, people in Wales used the dye made from the leaves to paint crosses on stone floors to ward off witches (Inkwright 2021: 106). That last one fascinated me, given the number of sources that describe how much witches apparently delighted in foxgloves and grew them for use in their spells. Was it the foxglove dye, or simply the shape of the cross that warded them off?

People also used its stalks to make parasol handles, while foxglove tea could make cut flowers last longer (Baker 2011: 61).

In Scotland, people considered the foxglove to be unlucky if brought indoors. It was also unlucky to take it on board a ship (Baker 2011: 61).

Foxgloves in Myth and Legend

Its legends extend beyond fairies. According to some variations of a Roman myth, the goddess Juno grew tired of her husband Jupiter conceiving children with other women–but not her. It especially vexed her that he birthed Minerva himself from his own forehead. Juno went to see the goddess Flora, goddess of flowers. She touched a foxglove to her belly and breasts and Juno conceived the god of war, Mars. Despite this, Nicholas Culpeper placed foxgloves under the rulership of Venus, though that might make sense through the plant’s links with the heart (1985: 135).

Foxgloves are also associated with St Nectan in Devon and Cornwall. He was the eldest son of the Welsh King Brychan, but he left home to become a hermit rather than following a royal lifestyle. One summer, two thieves stole a pair of his cows, so he chased the thieves to retrieve the cows. When he caught up with the thieves, they beheaded him, but rather than die so far from home, Nectan picked up his head and walked home. He finally died at his hut, but foxgloves sprang up wherever he spilled his blood on the way back (Inkwright 2021: 108).

What do we make of this folklore of foxgloves?

A lot of the stories around these plants are telling. Linking the plants with fairies and witches provided an excuse to warn people away from a plant that might be pretty but is incredibly poisonous. In many ways, such tales are an oral example of the public information films of the 20th century.

Its medicinal uses also reveal that poisons, when used correctly, can be used as medicine. As Paracelsus apparently said, “the dose makes the poison”, and while he meant anything could be poisonous at the right dose, in the case of foxgloves, it also demonstrates how crucial dosage is.

If you do want to grow them, then they are brilliant for pollinators, as long as you handle the plants safely. In Europe, foxgloves are part of the ecosystem, and we should respect these plants as neighbours rather than fear them.

Just don’t go ingesting them or bringing them indoors.

What do you think of foxgloves?

References

Baker, Margaret (2011 [1969]), Discovering the Folklore of Plants, 3rd edition, Oxford: Shire Classics (aff link).

Binney, Ruth (2018), Plant Lore and Legend, Hassocks: Rydon (aff link).

Burke, L (1867), The illustrated language of flowers, London: G. Routledge & Sons.

Culpeper, Nicholas (1985), Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, Ware: Omega Books.

Dietz, S. Theresa (2020), The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History, New York: Wellfleet Press.

Folkard, Richard (1892), Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Gillam, Fred (2008), Poisonous Plants in Great Britain, Glastonbury: Wooden Books (aff link).

Gray, Samantha (2015), The Secret Language of Flowers, London: CICO Books.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026), ‘Foxglove’, Botanical.com, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/foxglo30.html. Accessed 27 July 2026.

Inkwright, Fez (2019), Folk Magic and Healing: An Unusual History of Everyday Plants, London: Liminal 11 Press (affiliate link).

Inkwright, Fez (2021), Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants, London: Liminal 11 Press.

Kenicer, Gregory J. (2020), Plant Magic, Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Lawrence, Sandra (2020), The Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine, London: Welbeck (affiliate link).

Laws, Bill (2010), Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History, Hove: Quid Publishing (aff link).

Mitcheson, Fiona (2024), A-Z of Poisonous Plants: The deadly, dangerous & down right bizarre, Peterborough: Jarrold Publishing.

Wordsworth, William (n.d.), ‘Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room’, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52299/nuns-fret-not-at-their-convents-narrow-room. Accessed 27 July 2026.

Poisoning caused by this plant is thankfully rare, and they do serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Their berries feed birds, and they’ll grow in conditions other plants don’t enjoy. Arum maculatum is in the araceae family. But how did people use arum for both mundane and magical purposes? Let’s find out!

But before we delve into the folklore and legends of these plants, I’d like to remind you that this article is for entertainment purposes and it does not provide nor constitute medical advice. Any interaction you have with these plants is at your own risk. I’d advise you to look but not touch!

The Botany

The plant grows from tubers and puts out arrow-shaped leaves in early spring. By April/May, the flower emerges, with its distinctive white hood surrounding a finger-like spike (spadix) that eventually turns a purple-brown. By early autumn, the hood and leaves are gone, but the spadix hosts a head of large red-orange berries. It’s found in hedgerows and woodland, favouring shady conditions (RHS n.d.).

Cuckoo pint is actually a good indicator for the health of a wood because it shows the land has plenty of nutrients. There was a German belief that the spirits of the wood were happy if cuckoo pint was plentiful (Folkard 1892: 228).

It’s an unusual plant in that it’s pollinated by flies rather than bees. The plant lures the flies into the structure beneath the hood during the spring, where they pollinate the flowers inside. The plant can even raise the temperature of the surrounding air by up to 15°C to attract flies, something that was noted as far back as 1777 (Inkwright 2021: 79). Blackbirds and thrushes eat its berries in late summer, thus dispersing seeds for the plant.

The berries apparently taste horrible, meaning it’s unlikely anyone will accidentally eat them. If they do, it can cause the throat to swell, and vomiting (Lawrence 2020: 111). Nicholas Culpeper described how the plant’s taste would prickle “the tongue as nettles do the hands” (1985: 103). It certainly doesn’t sound appetising.

Folk Names

While most commonly known as Lords and Ladies or Cuckoo Pint, the plant has over 150 folk names, including starchwort, adder’s root, bobbins, friar’s cowl, kings and queens, parson and clerk, and wake Robin (Grieve 1995-2026).

They were also called Jack in the pulpit, referring to an old country nickname for the Devil, while it was called snake’s meat when it produced berries because people believed vipers ate the berries to create venom (Lawrence 2020: 111).

In Worcestershire, the bright red berries on their thick stalk earned the plant the nickname ‘Bloody Men’s Fingers’ (Folkard 1892: 228).

Another folk name is ‘fairy lamps’ because people believed it glowed at night, which isn’t entirely wrong, because the pollen is slightly phosphorescent (Lawrence 2020: 111).

Some say the dark green leaves have their unusual purple spatter because the plant grew at the base of Christ’s cross where His blood splattered them (Lawrence 2020: 111). These spots apparently earned the plant the nickname Gethsemane in Cheshire (Folkard 1892: 228).

Mundane Use of the Plant

Despite the plant being poisonous, Culpeper recommended bruising the leaves and applying them to plague sores to draw out poison. Culpeper recommended a drachm weight of either fresh or dried arum as a “remedy for poison and the plague” (1985: 103). Meanwhile, he claimed that using the leaves as a poultice could draw the poison from sores (1985: 104).

He also recommended boiling the root and leaf with wine and oil to relieve piles. Another ‘cure’ involved beating cuckoo pint berries with ox dung to ease gout. Or you could bruise the fresh roots and distil them with milk. The resulting liquid could apparently remove freckles, spots, or blemishes from the skin (1985: 104).

Many of his recommendations have been thoroughly debunked, so please don’t try any of these at home (Lawrence 2020: 111). Elsewhere in Britain, people thought bringing arum indoors would cause tuberculosis (Kenicer 2020: 99).

Still, it had other uses beyond medicine. In the medieval era, women might soak the root for five nights, changing the water every day, and then use the root as an exfoliant. It would still have been toxic but less likely to cause burns (Inkwright 2021: 80). It’s just more proof that women have turned to unpleasant methods to meet arbitrary beauty standards well before social media came along.

In a more mundane way, arum had uses around the home. People used juice from its berries for starch to stiffen ruffs in the Tudor and Stuart periods (Inkwright 2021: 79). Farmers in Cambridgeshire used arum juice on newly sharpened sickles to help keep them sharp during harvest time (Baker 2011: 47).

Magical Use of the Plant

Richard Folkard named arum as being one of “the most esteemed herbs” by witches, used “in the hell-brothers, philtres, potions, and baleful draughts prepared for their enemies” (1892: 95). He goes on to explain that they gathered cuckoo flowers in meadows on 1 May. I’m assuming he means cuckoo-pint, since it’s the only related plant in his list of witchy herbs. He also explains that witches boiled various herbs together, usually seven or nine plants, and that witch ointments needed to contain seven herbs to be effective (Folkard 1892: 95).

It would have been helpful if Folkard thought to include more information about the magical use of arum.

Cuckoo pint was also part of a folk practice aimed at young men wanting to find a young lady at a dance. He put a piece of the plant in his shoe, while saying, “I place you in my shoe, Let all the girls be drawn to you.” Doing so apparently gave him the pick of the prettiest dance partners “and other favours” (Baker 2011: 46). Naturally, this would depend on his definition of ‘prettiest’, but given the phallic nature of the spadix, it’s fairly obvious what favours a young man would be hoping for in using the plant in such a way. The ‘pint’ part of its name even comes from an Old English word for ‘penis’, which again gives us clues about the less-than-wholesome intentions behind this practice.

It might explain why arum meant ardour in the Victorian language of flowers (Burke 1867: 9). In some parts of Dorset, young women were warned not to touch the plant or they’d become pregnant (Kenicer 2020: 99). Despite these links with love and sex, arum apparently fell under Mars’ dominion (Folkard 1892: 229).

If you find such love magic fascinating, you might also like the entire book I wrote about the topic! Bring Me Love: Finding and Keeping Love with Divination and Folk Magic features an entire chapter about using plants to find love.

What do we make of the folklore of cuckoo pint?

It’s fascinating how the folklore around arum falls into its domestic use or a couple of folk practices. Yet we often run into this with plants. The folklore is sparse, either because it was so common that everyone knew what the plant was for, making redundant the need to pass on information through stories. Alternatively, the plant was so poisonous there was no need to preserve information since no one wanted to use it.

What does remain about cuckoo pint falls into the cosmetic (its use as an exfoliant or as starch for ruffs) or the seductive. Both of these ultimately tie into the same idea; using whatever means are at your disposal to have success with others. I think we can probably guess what ‘wake Robin’ refers to!

References

Baker, Margaret (2011 [1969]), Discovering the Folklore of Plants, 3rd edition, Oxford: Shire Classics (aff link).

Burke, L (1867), The illustrated language of flowers, London: G. Routledge & Sons.

Culpeper, Nicholas (1985), Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, Ware: Omega Books.

Folkard, Richard (1892), Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026), ‘Cuckoo-Pint’, Botanical.com, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/cucko122.html. Accessed 24 July 2026.

Inkwright, Fez (2021), Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants, London: Liminal 11 Press (affiliate link).

Kenicer, Gregory J. (2020), Plant Magic, Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (affiliate link).

Lawrence, Sandra (2020), The Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine, London: Welbeck (affiliate link).

RHS (no date), ‘Lords-and-ladies’, RHS, https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/lords-and-ladies. Accessed 24 July 2026.

But sometimes something comes along that gives me the opportunity to explore an Iron Age - read Celtic - subject, based on archaeological evidence! There is currently an exhibition on at the Great North Museum: Hancock called Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found, which has on display a range of items from various hoards, including Iron Age jewellery, Tudor coins, Viking ingots, and Bronze Age swords. One of the hoards included votive offerings for a triad of Celtic goddesses, the Deae Matres, so I decided to use it as a starting point for this month’s bonus episode.

The audio post is beyond the paywall, and if you can support, then it helps me to keep spending time on research, writing articles, and recording episodes. I do not use AI so I’m doing all of this the good old-fashioned human way, which naturally takes time, effort, and often expense, in the form of paying for research materials.

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Dr A. D. Manns is a historian and writer who has long maintained a deep interest in folklore, comparative religion, dissident politics, and mystical literature. He graduated from the Warburg Institute in 2019 with a study on the religio-political storytelling of the 17th-century English propagandist and parliamentarian William Prynne. In 2025, Hexen Press published his first monograph, Aradia’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Life of Roma Lister.

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There’s probably a reason I haven’t come across the sunflower in my usual travels through plant lore, because the sunflower (Helianthus annuus) comes from Mexico and Peru. It only arrived in the UK in the 16th century.

Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t get its name from a tendency to turn its flowers towards the sun. Apparently, sunflowers don’t do that; they simply grow faster on one side of their stem one day, and then faster on the other side the next day, so it looks like they’re turning.

If you’d like to learn more about sunflower folklore, and the bizarre superpower of sunflowers, then become a paid supporter, and help me continue to share posts like this!

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Marion Gibson writes accurate, engaging books about witches and magic in history. She’s been interested in witches for over thirty years, since she read the words of women accused of witchcraft in Elizabethan England. Why were they accused of crimes they didn’t commit? And why did they confess? Marion’s books tell the stories of these women and the men accused alongside them, and she explores the wider history of witch trials, folklore, magical and pagan beliefs and things that go bump in the night.

Buy Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth Century Britain: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781398545144 (affiliate link)

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Amy Boucher is a writer and folklorist, who focuses on her native Shropshire. Her emphasis is primarily on the interplay between folklore, history and the paranormal, and perceptions of the past through the lens of folk customs and belief.

Find Amy online at: https://nearlyknowledgeable.co.uk/

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Josh Hutchinson is a descendant of people accused of witchcraft and of people who accused others of witchcraft. Sarah Jack is a documented descendant of victims of witch trials held in Salem, Boston, and Hartford, including Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, Mary Hale, and Winifred Benham. They co-host three history podcasts: The Thing About Witch Hunts, The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials, and Salem Witch Trials Daily. They are also co-founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, and End Witch Hunts, America’s only nonprofit organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the continuation of violence related to witchcraft accusations.

Let’s explore the Salem Witch Trials in this week’s episode of Fabulous Folklore!

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Yes, she wrote a lot about plants. She wrote A Modern Herbal, in fact. Yet she also contributed to the wartime efforts of the First World War in the realm of medicinal plants.

She’s perhaps not as well-known as the other three herbal writers I’ve featured: Elizabeth Blackwell, William Turner, and Nicholas Culpeper. She didn’t illustrate her herbal, like Blackwell. Nor did she translate Latin texts into English, like Turner or Culpeper.

But she did get people growing–and using–their own herbs. Let’s go to meet her.

Who was Maud Grieve?

Maud Grieve was born Sophie Emma Magdalene Law on 4 May 1858 in Islington. She went to India in 1879, where she met and married her husband, William Grieve. He ran a paper mill, and they stayed in India until the early 1900s. It’s possible that Kolkata’s extensive Botanic Gardens sparked her interest in plants (Making British Botany n.d.).

Maud was a self-taught botanist, though William encouraged her to collect old herbals and gardening books for their library at The Whins, their Buckinghamshire home. She sold seeds as a form of income, and began writing pamphlets about medicinal plants. We’ll come back to these pamphlets later.

William died in 1929, and Maud died on 21 December 1941 in Royston, Hertfordshire. Normally, I’d prefer to write a longer biography, but there is actually little to go on when you look into Maud’s life!

Still, her work with plants is the important part, so let’s get into that.

Maud Grieve and the War Effort

Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the UK struggled to import the plants needed to make medicines.

In September 1914, a month after Britain declared war on Germany, the Journal of the Board of Agriculture published an article, The Cultivation & Collection of Medicinal plants in England, about the problem.

Two websites report that the Board of Agriculture published it as a leaflet, but I can’t find any actual record of it in that format. I could only find the issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts which reprinted the article in October 1914. It’s on JSTOR, if you’re looking.

In it, W. A. Whatmough points out that growing medicinal plants enjoys a long history in England. A Saxon herbal from c.1000 “mentions poppy, chamomile, dill, fennel, pennyroyal, and wormwood” (1914: 995). He describes how people began growing medicinal plants in monasteries and mansion gardens to make up for the scarcity of their wild cousins.

Naturally, Whatmough namechecks the Chelsea Physic Garden and large-scale medicinal plant nurseries in Mitcham in 1756. Yet he also notes the expanding restrictions on land devoted to growing medicinal plants. While British drugs were lauded for their quality, other countries undercut prices, pushing homegrown drugs out of the market (1914: 995).

Whatmough’s original intention with the article was to appeal to druggists to support English drug cultivation. The outbreak of the First World War changed the plan, since demand for medicines suddenly outstripped supply. Belladonna bore the brunt of problems, since two successive wet winters wiped out English-grown plants, while the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 prevented the export of belladonna from Croatia. Stocks were dangerously low by 1914 (1914: 996).

Chamomile, dill, dandelion, valerian, colchicum, foxglove, fennel, henbane, and thornapple also faced similar problems (1914: 996). It’s honestly fascinating to think of there ever being a shortage in dandelions!

Whatmough called for fair compensation for British growers, but also suggested that farmers would “be fulfilling a patriotic duty by replacing the deficiency of healing drugs as far as possible” (1914: 996). He outlined the need for growers to also dry their own plants to provide the highest quantity of herbs possible.

He highlighted various plants that growers should consider, including the best growing conditions for their success: aconite, anise, belladonna, caraway, chamomile, coriander, dandelion, foxglove, dill, fennel, golden seal, henbane, opium poppies, thornapple, and valerian.

Enter Maud Grieve

With a call to arms like this, Maud converted her nursery into a herb garden to help grow some of these plants. She also helped set up the National Herb Growing Association in 1914, which lasted until 1917. Later, she was the president of the British Guild of Herb Growers.

Of course, people need to know how to actually grow herbs. She set up The Whins Medicinal and Commercial Herb School to train people in growing herbs. Students learned to grow, harvest, and dry their own herbs. Terms lasted for thirteen weeks, and Grieve considered 2-3 years enough study to be proficient (Bahrt 2025).

She wrote pamphlets about the benefits of medicinal herbs, something she continued to do after the war. Maud sold these pamphlets, along with seeds and a correspondence course (Bahrt 2025).

In 1919, she created the first herb garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with horticulturalist Eleanour Sinclair Rohde. Rohde, a former student of Maud’s, went on to publish The Wartime Vegetable Garden in 1940, doing her own bit for novice gardeners, this time during the Second World War. Eleanour included recipes alongside gardening advice, making her manual more useful than the typical vegetable gardening books of the era.

Maud’s war effort didn’t pay off financially. After the war, medicine manufacturers could import herbs again, and business dwindled for Maud. She closed the farm in 1929 after William’s death. But she didn’t stay idle.

A Modern Herbal

I mentioned Maud’s pamphlets earlier. She wrote over three hundred of them, detailing the medicinal use of various plants. The founder of the Society of Herbalists, Hilda Leyel, recognised the potential of the pamphlets and suggested they became the basis of a new herbal.

Leyel edited the pamphlets, and A Modern Herbal was published in 1931 in two volumes. Together, the herbal contained 888 pages and 96 plates of illustrations. They added North American plants to widen the possible audience. It sold phenomenally well, selling out in 1931. A Modern Herbal only went out of print in 1947.

Leyel also cross-checked Maud’s work against a range of books, including John Clarke’s Dictionary of Materia Medica, Medical Botany by James Morss Churchill and John Stephenson, and the English and French official Pharmacopoeias.

You can buy copies of these original pre-1947 editions, or visit Botanical.com, which contains the whole herbal in electronic format.

There is a disclaimer on the home page regarding medical use, that the herbal was written with the conventional wisdom of the early 1900’s. Some of the information is now considered inaccurate or disagrees with contemporary medicine.

Helpfully, for my purposes at least, Maud included folklore alongside botanical and pharmaceutical information. True, she adds folklore sparingly, but it’s helpful to find it there nonetheless! For example, she tells us that the dead wore crowns of henbane in Greek mythology as they wandered beside the River Styx (Grieve 1995-2026b).

An Example – Golden Seal

I chose golden seal (Hydrastis Canadensis) as our first example since Whatmough highlighted it as an important plant. Also known as yellow root, ground raspberry, eye root, and turmeric root, it actually comes from Canada and the eastern US (Grieve 1995-2026a).

Indigenous Americans passed on their knowledge of the plant’s healing properties, particularly its roots, and it also provided a yellow fabric dye. Its medicinal uses included stomach issues, clearing catarrh, and easing loss of appetite.

Found in the buttercup family, golden seal was introduced into England in 1760.

Another Example – Thornapple

Found in the Solanaceae family, thornapple (Datura stramonium) is also known as jimson-weed, datura, and Devil’s Trumpet. According to Grieve, its poisonous qualities and strange side effects explained its American nickname of Devil’s Apple (1995-2026b).

European botanists thought it came from North America, while North American botanists considered it a European plant. People in London started growing it as an ornamental garden plant at the end of the 16th century. Surprisingly, growing thornapple in your garden was considered unlucky during the “witch mania” in England, since people thought thornapple aided witch incantations (Grieve 1995-2026c).

Grieve included an old recipe for a burn involving datura and elder leaves, and lard. It sounds rather involved, with the maker being directed to beat the leaves, boil them with the lard, and let it stand for a while. Next, the maker heated it over a fire, strained it, added fresh herbs, and repeated the process. Made correctly, the ointment would keep for seven years.

The recipe came from A Plain Plantain, published in 1922 but based on a household receipt book by Susanna Avery from 1688.

Other Works

Maud didn’t just write A Modern Herbal. She also wrote Culinary herbs and condiments (1933).

As you might imagine, Culinary herbs and condiments focused on 33 herbs to use in cooking, including rosemary, basil, and dill. The book also included information on how to grow, harvest, dry, store, and use the herbs.

At least you’d know these plants were edible.

What was Maud Grieve’s legacy?

Maud is perhaps less well-known in wider circles than Nicholas Culpeper, and definitely less well-known in botanical illustration circles than Elizabeth Blackwell.

She made little from her efforts, though she did influence how people gardened, and even viewed growing herbs. While we can’t easily measure how many people did ‘grow for Britain’ or even follow her teachings, we do know people did. Look at Eleanour Sinclair Rohde. She was a student, and went on to write various gardening books to encourage people to grow their own.

Her peers recognised her expertise, and she became a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and Fellow of the British Science Guild. While she isn’t a plant folklorist, she did include plant lore in her herbal, providing extra context, or even just interesting tidbits, alongside the useful content. As a folklorist myself with a keen interest in plants, I would always put the plant first, but that’s personal preference!

For those who did follow her work, she demystified how to grow and work with herbs. In some ways, we can see her as a later descendant of Nicholas Culpeper, putting useful information into the hands of ordinary people. We can only speculate why her name isn’t perhaps as well-known as Culpeper’s, but we can at least follow her example and try to grow our own.

If you’d like to learn herbalism, and get access to a new plant monograph every month, then I recommend Rowan + Sage’s Herbaria membership. There are tons of monographs already uploaded in the community, and you also get access to plenty of recipes to put your newfound knowledge into practice.

Had you heard of Maud Grieve? Do you grow your own herbs? Let me know below!

References

Bahrt, Nichole (2025), ‘Important women of 20th Century Herbalism: Maud Grieve’, The Herb Society, https://herbsociety.org.uk/important-women-of-20th-century-herbalism-maud-grieve/. Accessed 22 June 2026.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026a), ‘Golden Seal’, Botanical.com: A Modern Herbal, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/g/golsea27.html. Accessed 22 June 2026.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026b), ‘Henbane’, Botanical.com: A Modern Herbal, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/henban23.html. Accessed 22 June 2026.

Grieve, Maud (1995-2026c), ‘Thornapple’, Botanical.com: A Modern Herbal, https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/t/thorna12.html. Accessed 22 June 2026.

Making British Botany (no date), ‘MAUD GRIEVE (née Law)’, Making British Botany, https://www.newbotaniststwo.uk/maud-grieve. Accessed 21 June 2026.

Whatmough, W. A. (1914), ‘The Cultivation and Collection of Medicinal Plants in England’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 62 (3232), pp. 995–1003.

In Newcastle, where I am, the average temperature in June is 17°C, whereas yesterday, it reached 28°C. London is 250 miles or so south of me and sees an average temperature of 21°C, some 10°C lower than the temperature of 31°C today.

And that’s just a snapshot of the range in the UK. Bilbao in Spain recorded 42.5°C on Wednesday, and La Rochelle in France recorded 41.3°C.

I know temperatures can and do surpass those elsewhere in the world, but I can’t stress enough how the UK is not built for this heat. We’re usually in a temperate climate that tends towards wind and rain, and our buildings and infrastructure are built accordingly.

But you’re here for the folklore, not discussions of climate change, so I decided to see what folklore existed about heatwaves!

Unsurprisingly, there is very little. Our ancestors didn’t have to cope with heat like this in Europe. Extreme weather involved flooding, snow, and storms, so we have tons of weather omens about bad weather.

But that’s not to say there isn’t any folklore about heat and the sun, so we’re going to explore what I did find, around the Dog Days of Summer, superstitions involving the sun, and a flower that can apparently forecast rain...

Read more

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This week, we’re going to meet Nicholas Culpeper, who took on the medical establishment in the 17th century, and did so using a herbal.

Who was Nicholas Culpeper?

Nicholas Culpeper was born in 1616. His reverend father died before his birth, and his widow mother brought him up in her father’s house. The Culpepers enjoyed wealth and some notoriety, with Nicholas distantly related to Thomas Culpeper, the reputed lover of Catherine Howard.

Yet Nicholas lost out on these privileges, being brought up in his grandfather’s rectory. Fortunately, the young Culpeper spent much of his youth in the parts of the rectory run by the women. There, he learned how to use plants primarily to heal, becoming familiar with the plants that grew in his local area (Woolley 2004: 19). His mother owned a copy of John Gerard’s Herbal, which no doubt influenced his love of healing plants.

While his grandfather, William Attersole, wanted him to take orders, Nicholas pursued interests in medicine, astrology, and the occult.

He undertook an apothecary apprenticeship and, in 1640, married Alice Field. By the mid-1640s, Culpeper set up a successful pharmacy in Spitalfields. Culpeper saw forty or so patients per morning, treating patients with herbs. Spitalfields lay just outside the London boundary, so Culpeper didn’t have to abide by the Royal College of Physicians’ rules (Cleveland-Peck 2026).

Given his wife’s wealth, he often treated people for free (Chetham’s Library 2022). Culpeper constantly came into conflict with both the apothecaries and physicians since he charged less for herbal remedies and condemned their use of bloodletting. These radical beliefs and practices even saw other apothecaries accuse him of witchcraft.

Culpeper fought in the Civil War on the side of the Parliamentarians, which is hardly a surprise since he was an anti-monarchist republican. He performed surgery on the battlefield at the First Battle of Newbury. He suffered a chest wound, and it’s possible the wound aggravated the tuberculosis that killed him in January 1654 when he was just 38.

He was buried in the New Churchyard, used most often as the Bethlem burial ground. The churchyard later became private gardens of yards for the neighbouring houses. Parts of it were excavated during the Crossrail project.

Ironically, the Civil War proved to be useful to Culpeper. It led to the suspension of the Company of Stationers’ censorship of printed matter. Culpeper’s work likely would have been censored before this point (Warren-Davis 2005).

So what was going on with medicine? Why was he radical?

In the 16th century, medical practice was unregulated. Henry VIII issued a charter in 1518, which handed medical regulation to the Royal College of Physicians. This meant apothecaries needed a license to operate legally if they worked within seven miles of London.

It all got very messy with the guild system, since apothecaries fell under the Grocers’ Guild, and physicians now had to report to the Royal College. See Benjamin Woolley’s book, The herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the fight for medical freedom, for more information on the period.

In April 1618, another royal proclamation by James I ordered all apothecaries to use the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. This forced apothecaries to use a text written entirely in Latin, a language many of the apothecaries only had at a basic level. The book also only gave the ingredients and recipe, but not what you’d use any remedies for.

Making any medicines or remedies not in the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis was also illegal.

Enter Culpeper. He learned Latin at university and realised how flawed the Pharmacopoeia was during his apothecary apprenticeship. He wrote a translation, published in August 1649. Except that Culpeper didn’t just translate the text. He added the healing properties of plants alongside the recipes. Now, you only needed to be able to read in order to use the book.

This enraged the physicians, who accused Culpeper of revealing their secrets. Even worse (or funnier, depending on your outlook), Culpeper added his own commentary to mock the physicians.

The criticism didn’t stop Culpeper. If anything, it probably told him he was on the right track. He later wrote The English Physitian, which we know as Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, published in 1652.

Culpeper’s Complete Herbal

Culpeper priced the book at 3p, which at the time would have bought a pound of almonds (Petch 2015). Using the Measuring Worth money calculator, 3p in 1650 money was worth £2.52 in 2025 (around $3.30). The Wordsworth Reference edition published in 1995 is £3.99, while other copies are upwards of £12.99.

This made his herbal accessible and affordable, and meant that those with little money no longer needed to hire expensive physicians. As it was, the original herbals were only so expensive to keep the information out of the hands of ordinary people.

While Turner’s work already made a lot of herbal information available to the general public, Culpeper’s lifts the lid on whole swathes of the medicine-making process. He described how, where, and when to gather herbs, and even how long to keep them (1789). He describes the ways you might take the herbs, so for the heart, you’d take borage and bugloss in wine or conserves, while balm worked best in waters (1789: 14).

Herbs were also associated with the planets and the signs, as befitting Culpeper’s astrological practice and study under William Lilly. This is one of the ways in which Culpeper’s work differs from Turner’s. His inclusion of astrological medicine often saw Culpeper branded as a quack, compared to Turner’s ‘serious’ botanical pursuits (Tobyn 2024: 238).

He also included poisonous plants, and warned people which were dangerous. For example, under aconitum (monkshood), he points out that it is “of a martial venomous quality” and “killeth the body”. He includes it so people can be wary of it if they grow it in their gardens (1789: 71).

An Example – Wood Avens

I’ve just hauled a wheelie bin’s worth of wood avens out of my garden, so I thought I’d consult the Complete Herbal to see what it was for.

Also called avens, clovewort, and herb benet, Culpeper describes how wood avens grow under hedges and beside paths through fields, but that they prefer shade to sun. They flower in May and June, and Culpeper ascribes them to Jupiter. They’re apparently good for diseases in the chest, stitches in the side, or “to expel crude and raw humours from the belly and stomach” (1789: 69).

If drunk, a decoction comforts the heart, though you can make the decoction with both the juice from fresh roots and the powder from dried roots. Steeping the root in wine provides a heart-nourishing drink every morning, and that it was “fit to be kept in every body’s house” (1789: 70).

That said, he does also say it can prevent the plague, which is clearly nonsense.

Another Example – Balm

I also wanted to look up lemon balm, which is one of my favourite plants. He places it under Jupiter’s rulership, and suggests that every gentlewoman keep a syrup made with sugar and its juice in the house to relieve weak stomachs.

He notes the praise heaped upon it by Arabian physicians (Ibn Sina was a big fan of balm), and describes how it could cause “the mind and heart to become merry”. Referencing Ibn Sina, he talks of how it “driveth away all troublesome cares and thoughts out of the mind arising from melancholy” (1789: 72). This is fascinating given its use in treating anxiety.

Griping pains in the stomach? Add the leaves to a drink. Fascinatingly, a respondent to Plant-Lore.com from Gloucestershire advised lemon balm tea for stomach problems or colic (Vickery 2010).

What was Culpeper’s legacy?

In some ways, Culpeper was ahead of his time. He described the use of foxglove to treat heart arrhythmia (McWilliams 2019: 29).

He even directed his 1651 book about midwifery, A Directory for Midwives; or a Guide for women in their conception, bearing and suckling of their children, etc., to women themselves. He apologised in the dedication for being a man writing about the subject, and invited them to correct him on anything he’d gotten wrong in the book

It’s difficult to assess the impact of Culpeper’s work in terms of people’s actual health. After all, William Harvey also discovered the circulatory system in the same period. Yet mortality rates remained at similar levels for a century or so after the publication of Harvey’s work and Culpeper’s Herbal (Woolley 2004).

Instead, his ideas seem to shape his impact. To Culpeper, both healthcare and medical knowledge should be accessible to society. They weren’t just the preserve of those wealthy enough to pay for it (McWilliams 2019: 29).

Culpeper sought to put medical knowledge into the hands of those who couldn’t afford it. That’s not the same as the contemporary distrust of experts, which we see when people think a casual Google search is the equivalent of years of academic study of a topic.

Some writers have considered him as an ancestor of the NHS. I’m not sure we can make that claim. Aneurin Bevan suggested the NHS in 1946, based on the work of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in his native Wales. Culpeper’s belief in free healthcare is a definite common point, but there’s a difference between a wealthy apothecary offering free healthcare and an NHS that offers healthcare free-at-the-point-of-access that people pay for through their taxes.

His Complete Herbal remains in print, meaning it has enjoyed one of the longest print runs of any English-language book (Chetham’s Library 2022). Don’t get me wrong, there are issues with Culpeper’s herbal. Some of the plant properties are wrong. Others are assigned healing qualities based on the doctrine of signatures, a medical system in which people believed plants cured whatever body part they resembled. Its name comes from the idea that God left his signature on the world to tell people how to use plants and trees.

We can also see the issues with people trying to take medical care into their own hands when they don’t have the experience to do so. Still, Culpeper’s attempt to democratise healthcare and challenge the elites should be recognised. While his plant information was sometimes wrong, his awareness of the natural world is definitely something to celebrate.

Had you heard of Nicholas Culpeper?

References

Chetham’s Library (2022), ‘Nicholas Culpeper’, Chetham’s Library, https://library.chethams.com/blog/nicholas-culpeper/. Accessed 15 June 2026.

Cleveland-Peck, Patricia (2026), ‘Nicholas Culpeper, Herbalist Of Spitalfields’, Smithfields Life, https://spitalfieldslife.com/2026/05/02/nicholas-culpeper-herbalist-of-spitalfields-iii/. Accessed 15 June 2026.

Eschner, Kat (2017), ‘How Nicholas Culpeper Brought Medicine to the People’, Smithsonian magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-nicholas-culpeper-brought-medicine-people-180965291/. Accessed 15 June 2026.

McWilliams, Stephen (2019), ‘A Physician Centuries Ahead of his Time’, Irish Medical Times, 53 (10), 29.

Petch, Emily (2015), ‘Nicholas Culpeper and his herbal’, Royal Botanic Gardens: Kew, https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/nicholas-culpeper-and-his-herbal. Accessed 15 June 2026.

Tobyn, Graeme (2024), ’Culpeper’s herbal The English Physitian and its debt to apothecary John Parkinson’, Medical History; London, 68 (3), pp. 237-253.

Vickery, Roy (2010), ‘Balm’, Plant-Lore.com, https://www.plant-lore.com/balm/. Accessed 15 June 2024.

Warren-Davis, Dylan (2005), ‘Nicholas Culpeper: Herbalist of the People’, Skyscript, https://www.skyscript.co.uk/culpeper.html. Accessed 17 June 2026.

Woolley, Benjamin (2004), The herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the fight for medical freedom, London: HarperCollins (aff link).

Having such a plethora of plant material available called for the introduction of the herbal; a book collecting plants and their uses into one place. Yet books require one simple thing – the ability to read. India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China all kept records about the use of plants. In Europe, many early herbals were written in Latin, putting them beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Until William Turner came along and changed the game by writing one in English. Let’s go to meet him.

Who was William Turner?

William Turner was born somewhere between 1508 and 1510 in Morpeth, Northumberland. Little is known about his early life, although there is some suggestion he was the son of a tanner (Garnett 2014). This makes his acceptance into Pembroke College in Cambridge all the more impressive, though Lord Wentworth acted as his patron. Turner got both a BA and an MA from Cambridge between 1526 and 1533. Turner devoted his free time to studying plants, particularly in their native habitats.

In 1538, he published his first book, Libellus de re herbaria. This book of herbs names 144 native British plants, including their names in Latin and Greek. This book was an early move into botanical classification, especially since a lot of plants described in European herbals were Mediterranean. They weren’t necessarily the same plants as the apparent English equivalents (Hunneyball 2022).

Turner became a deacon in 1536 and was arrested in 1540 for his fierce Protestant views. While Henry VIII had established the Church of England in 1534, he remained theologically conservative (Deegan 2016b). Turner wouldn’t tone down his beliefs, hence his arrest.

Turner had had some contact with Thomas Cromwell, so after his execution in 1540, Turner moved to Italy. The state banned his works in 1546, along with books by other writers whose religious beliefs clashed with the king. In many ways, Turner’s work as a naturalist complemented his religious beliefs. To him, writing about nature meant telling people about the glory of God’s creation, which explains why he also wrote books about birds and fish, as well as plants. In 1544, Turner also wrote the first printed book solely about birds (Garnett 2014).

He trained in France and Italy before travelling to Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. While in Europe, he collected plants and sent specimens to apothecaries in London.

Turner returned to Britain in 1547 following the death of Henry VIII, and he found work as a physician in Somerset. He published The names of herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duche and Frenche in 1548, covering far more plants than his earlier work.

He created the New Herball and released it in three volumes in 1551, 1562, and 1568. He copied the illustrations from De historia stirpium (1542) by Leonhart Fuchs. The first two printings rarely survive, so the third version from 1568, which was the first complete edition, is the one people more often encounter.

He established a herb garden at the Dean of Wells Cathedral. When Mary I came to the throne, Turner left for Germany. Copies of his books were destroyed during Mary’s reign due to Turner’s Calvinist beliefs. Turner only returned to England when the protestant Elizabeth I became queen. He even dedicated the New Herball to Elizabeth, calling her ‘the most noble and learned princesse in all kinds of good learninge’.

He died in 1568.

What was medicine like in 16th-century England?

Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, people sought medical care from monasteries. The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was one of England’s largest and richest monasteries, and boasted a reputation for medical learning (Black 2023).

The Church also ran many early hospitals. London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital is a good example (which still operates), while we looked at St Mary’s of Bethlehem in the Bedlam episode. Henry’s split from Rome caused many funding issues for these hospitals, while the closing of the monasteries removed a fundamental source of medical care.

After that, aside from local healers or family remedies, medical help came from three main places in 16th-century England.

Physicians received training at a university, although they also operated according to the four humours system, seeking to balance phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood in the body. This is why bloodletting became a popular treatment if physicians thought you had too much blood. Physicians cost a lot of money to hire.

You also had apothecaries who made and sold medicines – think of them as pharmacists. By 1600, only 100 or so of them operated in England.

Barber-surgeons were the third type of medical professional. Physicians directed them, but they did the physical work, also extracting teeth if required (Deegan 2016a).

It’s really important to realise that this was not the case everywhere. Medical knowledge in South West Asia was incredibly advanced compared to Europe. Islamic hospitals were established in Cairo in 872 CE and Baghdad in 932 CE. These hospitals also employed Jewish and Christian doctors, and provided surgery and treatment for the elderly and mentally ill. By the 11th century, larger hospitals had pharmacies and female staff (Science Museum 2019).

Europe took a little while to catch up with what was happening elsewhere. For example, healers in Uganda and Rwanda had perfected the caesarean section with an excellent success rate in the late 19th century at a time when it was still incredibly dangerous to perform in Europe (NLM 2026).

Why did Turner’s herbal matter?

Before Turner’s work, herbalists passed on knowledge by word of mouth. Herbals did exist, but they were written in Latin, making them inaccessible to the majority of the population. Besides that, plants often had different names in different places. You might consult a medicinal textbook from a century earlier, but not know if the plants were the same plants you were looking at. This also became an issue if you were a doctor, writing a prescription for an apothecary to make up. The apothecary needed to know they were using the same plants as the doctor intended.

Turner loved plants and the work of herbalists, but he’d also studied medicine at Pembroke College in Cambridge. He spotted the opportunity to bring the fields together. Primarily, a New Herball is a guide to herbs for physicians and apothecaries, but Turner argued that knowledge of plants was essential for them, otherwise they couldn’t “deuly exercise their office and vocation where unto they are called”.

A New Herball was also a landmark book because it provided a systematic survey of 238 native English plants in English. Turner used his firsthand research to collect the uses of these plants. The wider public finally had access to herbal information, including what the plants were used for.

Naturally, not everyone was thrilled about this, but this is why people describe Turner as the father of British botany. He predates Nicholas Culpeper and his efforts to make herbal knowledge more widely available by half a century. One of the criticisms was that anyone might presume to practice medicine with the book. Yet Turner argued that Dioscorides wrote in Greek for his audience, and people didn’t go off to practice medicine – why should they do that with his book? (Deegan 2016c).

Turner did also engage with folklore about the plants, but only to ridicule it where it was wrong. He noted in his description of mandrake that he’d never seen a mandrake root shaped like a person. If you found one at the market that looked like that, it was a fake (1568: 318)! Nor, as Turner pointed out, did it grow under gallows, as a “certayn dotyng doctor of Colon in hys physik lecture dyd tech hys auditores” (1568: 318).

He also updates existing beliefs about plants. In the entry about the larch tree, he notes that Pliny “described it and maketh mention of it, but not all wayes accordyng to the truthe as men of great experience and of no lesse learnyng, not beyng encumbred wyht such besines as Pliny was have of late founde out” (1568: 283). Ouch, burn. One example is that Pliny said larch leaves never decay or fall, but later writers realised the leaves fall in winter (1568: 283).

He wasn’t afraid to correct wrong ideas, although the work does still replicate some mistakes from his era, since he respected those sources. Ultimately, A New Herball was England’s first work of scientific botany. It’s also the 16th century’s only original botanical book in England.

What was William Turner’s legacy?

In terms of herbalism, A New Herball helped to make herbal knowledge more accessible to a wider audience – as long as you could read, of course.

He also had an impact on Northumberland. He refers to Northumberland throughout his work, but botanists have been able to identify several plants that still grow where he recorded them 500 years ago.

The William Turner Garden commemorates his work in Morpeth. It sits within Carlisle Park’s formal gardens and contains features found in 16th-century Tudor gardens. For example, there is a viewing mound to allow for views down into the garden, and physic beds full of medicinal plants. Box hedges and yew trees appear in the knot garden. A version of the garden won a Bronze Medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2004 (Gardner n.d.).

But if you only remember him for one thing, remember it was Turner who put plant information into a language ordinary people understood.

If you’re keen to learn about plants and herbalism in a decolonial setting, then I always recommend Rowan + Sage. The Vitalist Herbcraft course is a great place to get started!

Had you heard of William Turner? Let me know below!

References

Black, Winston (2023), ‘Medicine and Miracle in a Medieval Monastery’, National Library of Medicine, https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2023/01/05/medicine-and-miracle-in-a-medieval-monastery/. Accessed 9 June 2026.

Deegan, Patricia (2016a), ‘A Forgotten Tudor Scientist – Part 1’, Tudors Dynasty, https://tudorsdynasty.com/forgotten-tudor-scientist-part-1/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Deegan, Patricia (2016b), ‘A Forgotten Tudor Scientist – Part 2’, Tudors Dynasty, https://tudorsdynasty.com/forgotten-tudor-scientist-part-2/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Deegan, Patricia (2016c), ‘A Forgotten Tudor Scientist – Part 3’, Tudors Dynasty, https://tudorsdynasty.com/a-forgotten-tudor-scientist-part-3/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Gardner, Andrew (no date), ‘William Turner Garden’, Fabulous North, https://fabulousnorth.com/william-turner-garden/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Garnett, Elizabeth (2014), ‘Hidden Treasures : William Turner’s “A New Herball”’, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, https://blog.twmuseums.org.uk/hidden-treasures-william-turners-a-new-herball/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Hunneyball, Paul (2022), ‘William Turner and the reformation of gardening’, History of Parliament, https://historyofparliament.com/2022/08/30/william-turner-gardening/. Accessed 8 June 2026.

NLM (2026), ‘Cesarean Section – A Brief History’, National Library of Medicine, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part2.html. Accessed 10 June 2026.

North East Museums (no date), ‘William Turner’, North East Museums, https://www.northeastmuseums.org.uk/projects/our-past-your-future/william-turner. Accessed 8 June 2026.

Science Museum (2019), ‘Who pays for hospitals?’, Science Museum, https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/who-pays-hospitals. Accessed 9 June 2026.

Turner, William (1568), The first and seconde partes of the Herbal, Cologne : [Heirs of A. Birckman].

Yet did you know that one of the most well-regarded herbals of the 18th century was created, and marketed, by a woman? And that she even got endorsements from the Royal College of Physicians for the book, used by apothecaries for decades?

Let’s go and meet Elizabeth Blackwell.

Who was Elizabeth Blackwell?

Elizabeth Blachrie was born on 23 April 1699, the daughter of an Aberdeen stocking merchant (although Nicky Monroe said her father was a painter). She married her second cousin, Alexander Blackwell, though sources disagree as to when. Some reports say they married in 1733, but the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh placed the secret wedding much earlier. They’d moved to London by 1728, when Alexander was only 19. He was working as a proofreader after claiming he’d studied medicine in Leyden under Hermann Boerhaave. They’d left Aberdeen after someone challenged his lack of medical training, which was problematic given that he worked as a physician (British Library 2015).

Alexander found work with a publishing company for a brief stint, and then set up as a printer. Trouble was, he hadn’t done the compulsory four-year apprenticeship in the trade, so the printers’ guilds questioned his credentials. Heavy fines followed, and, in 1734, Alexander declared bankruptcy and ended up in debtors’ prison.

Elizabeth needed to earn an income, so she turned to her artistic skills, honed as a child. Sir Hans Sloane, President of the College of Physicians of London, suggested she compile a herbal to raise the money. After all, students needed a herbal of medicinal plants, and botany was one of the subjects deemed a suitable interest for women.

As a result, she created A Curious Herbal. The word ‘Curious’ doesn’t mean what you might imagine it does; it actually means ‘accurate and precise’ according to an old use of the word (RCPE n.d.).

What is a herbal?

Herbals are medical texts that describe what plants look like, how they can be used in a medicinal sense, and how to prepare them. The earliest written documents about medical plants are around 5000 years old, found in Egypt, Samaria, and China. Mesoamerican societies likely created something similar. The Papyrus Ebers, from 1500 BCE, contained over 700 herbal remedies.

Dioscorides created the first herbal in Europe in c.65 BCE, while physicians in south-west Asia created valuable medical texts that were later translated into Latin, forming the basis for European medical practice. Plant and medical practices outside of Europe tend to get forgotten in histories of herbalism. Funny, that.

Herbals became easier to produce with the introduction of the printing press in the 1480s. William Turner, sometimes considered British botany’s father, and John Gerard created the next landmark herbals. We’ll meet William Turner next week.

How did Elizabeth produce the Herbal?

Isaac Rand, curator at the Chelsea Physic Garden, helped her to rent rooms near the garden to provide the plants she needed. She drew each plant as realistically as possible, including different angles and different stages of growth. She also researched the plants using existing herbals to write the text about their uses. Alexander edited the text and provided the common and scientific plant names from his prison cell. Once she’d created a number of illustrations, a team of physicians, apothecaries, and a surgeon checked them over (RCPE n.d.). In essence, this is the peer review process in action, ensuring accuracy before publication – something that many Instagram accounts could do with!

Once the drawings were finished, she engraved the illustrations onto copper plates, and once they were printed, she hand coloured each page herself.

Elizabeth released the herbal in weekly instalments between 1737 and 1739, comprising a page of engravings and four pages of text. The finished herbal ended up containing 500 images and was re-released in two volumes (Beharrell 2021).

You can view Volume 1 and Volume 2 on the RHS website.

What is the Chelsea Physic Garden?

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries as a teaching garden. Originally, the society only leased the land for the garden. In 1718, Sir Hans Sloane proposed gifting the land to the society.

It provided a space for apothecary students to learn about medicinal plants. This made it the ideal place for Elizabeth to find the right plants for a herbal. Surprisingly, medical syllabi included mandatory study of plants until 1895.

In 1682, they established an international seed exchange programme. Over the years, they’ve added new habitats, like the glass houses and pond rockery. It’s now home to over 4,500 plants, and it’s open from Sunday to Friday. I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

It’s the UK’s second-oldest Botanic Garden, and the charity that now runs it widened its scope to acknowledge the impact of colonialism on plants. After all, the plant hunters who gathered plants outside Europe relied on the help of Indigenous people who were usually denied any credit for their knowledge and expertise.

Sir Hans Sloane himself was a noted scientist and physician, but he made the money he used to buy the Chelsea estate, including the garden, by working in Jamaica. There, he gained botanical knowledge from enslaved Africans and Indigenous people (CPG n.d.).

The garden now works to raise awareness of Indigenous knowledge. If you’re keen to learn about plants and herbalism in a decolonial setting, then I always recommend Rowan + Sage. The Herbaria membership includes monographs and papers that explore forms of herbalism outside of western herbalism, while the courses acknowledge and celebrate herbal knowledge from a range of communities.

Was the Herbal a success?

The Herbal received an endorsement from the Royal College of Physicians and the College of Surgeons. Part of its success lay in Elizabeth’s illustrations and the accuracy of the content (at least as it was understood at the time). Part of it also lay in her skills in marketing, and she wrote about the herbal for journals. Elizabeth also struck deals with booksellers so they would promote the book for her. She also issued the instalments to subscribers, which provided regular income while she worked on the project. I imagine she’d be on Substack if she was working now!

Yet the fact that she included plants from North and South America no doubt contributed to the herbal’s success. These plants were less familiar to her British audience and made the herbal more valuable in Europe.

Elizabeth’s success with the book allowed her to buy her husband out of prison. Alexander went to Sweden in 1742, where he somehow became the court physician to King Frederick. Unfortunately, he managed to get mixed up in a plot to change the Swedish line of succession. Arrested and condemned for treason, the Swedish state hanged him in 1748 (British Library 2015).

Elizabeth never saw Alexander again after he left London, although she was apparently on the verge of travelling to Sweden when the succession plot occurred. Sadly, she didn’t produce any more botanical works and died in 1758.

Why did A Curious Herbal matter?

The Herbal was the first major herbal produced by a British woman. It also marked a major achievement in botanical illustration and medical botany. Doctors and apothecaries continued to consult the herbal for decades. Elizabeth also holds the honour of being the first woman to publish a botanical illustration of coffee (Vega 2008: 144).

The publication was also important due to her role at each stage of the process. Elizabeth drew, etched, engraved, and hand-coloured her illustrations herself. She also focused on accuracy and scientific detail. After all, the illustrations are useless if you can’t identify a plant with them!

Elizabeth, understandably, didn’t include folklore within the herbal due to its use as a medical text. The line between plant lore and outright folklore can be a fuzzy one. As an example, Roy Vickery’s Plant Lore website collects people’s beliefs about plants that often include remedies people swear by!

Yet we can still see some possible points of crossover. For example, under the larkspur entry, Elizabeth tells us that “it cures the rheums and inflammations of the eyes” (1737: 74).

There are many links between larkspur and ‘seeing’ in plant lore, especially for scholars. They kept larkspur on their desks and glanced at it often to soothe their tired eyes (Baker 2011: 89). Meanwhile, people believed looking through bunches of larkspur at midsummer fires would protect the eyes from ailments for the coming year (Baker 2011: 89).

If we look at yarrow, she tells us that “the leaves are esteemed cooling, drying, binding, serviceable in all kinds of haemorrhages […] When applied outwardly it is of service against ruptures and staunches bleeding of fresh wounds” (1737: 54). One of yarrow’s common names is ‘woundwort’ and according to myth, Achilles used yarrow on soldiers’ wounds in the Trojan War. That’s where it gets the ‘Achillea’ in its scientific name!

Not all plant lore is so immediately useful, but it’s fascinating to see where the lore backs up the information in the herbals.

Elizabeth Blackwell: Pioneer?

Compared with the likes of Nicholas Culpeper, it’s possible many people won’t have heard of Elizabeth Blackwell. Or if they know the name, they’re more familiar with Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the UK’s Medical Register of the General Medical Council.

But I hope people will revisit Elizabeth’s botanical illustration work, and recognise that not only was she a talented artist, she was also an incredibly astute businesswoman and forward-thinking marketer!

Had you heard of Elizabeth Blackwell the artist?

References

Beharrell, Will (2021), ‘Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal’, The Linnean Society, https://www.linnean.org/news/2021/07/28/elizabeth-blackwells-curious-herbal. Accessed 1 June 2026.

Blackwell, Elizabeth (1737), A Curious Herbal, volume 1, London: John Nourse.

British Library (2015), ‘A Curious Herbal – dandelion’, British Library, https://web.archive.org/web/20150807041831/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-curious-herbal-dandelion. Accessed 1 June 2026.

CPG (no date), ‘History of Chelsea Physic Garden’, Chelsea Physic Garden, https://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/about/history/. Accessed 3 June 2026.

Monroe, Nicky (no date), ‘Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal’, RHS, https://www.rhs.org.uk/education-learning/libraries-at-rhs/articles/elizabeth-blackwell. Accessed 1 June 2026.

RCPE (no date), ‘Elizabeth Blackwell: Prison, Plotting and the Curious Herbal’, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/heritage-blog/elizabeth-blackwell-prison-plotting-and-curious-herbal. Accessed 1 June 2026.

Vega, Fernando E. (2008), ‘The Rise of Coffee: From Humble Origins in Africa, This Plant’s Flavorful Seeds Started as a Botanical Curiosity and Expanded to a Worldwide Staple’, American Scientist 96, no. 2, pp. 138–45.

Yep, the north east of England has its very own instrument, specific to Northumberland and Durham.

Unlike Great Highland Bagpipes, which are incredibly loud and need to be powered by human breath, the Northumbrian Pipes are bellows-powered and much quieter. The drones on Highland pipes rest upwards on the shoulder, while the drones on Northumbrian pipes sit across the chest.

There are actually two types of Northumbrian Pipes - the Northumbrian small-pipes and the Border or Half-Long pipes (which are sometimes known as the Lowland pipes in Scotland). I’m going to be talking about the small-pipes in this article!

I was once lucky enough to be enjoying a coffee in the Charter House cafe at Newcastle Cathedral while a group of Northumbrian pipers enjoyed a practice session. I recognised the song they played immediately - Jock O’Hazeldean. You can hear it on the small-pipes here:

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