Culpeper's Garden: Herbs of the Sun, Mercury and Venus

A herb of the Sun whose yellow flowers bleed a red oil when crushed. It was gathered at Midsummer and hung over doors and windows against dark spirits, and its old name Fuga Daemonum means the flight of demons.

Also ruled by the Sun, rosemary is the herb of remembrance, worn at weddings for fidelity and carried at funerals. Culpeper held it good for the head and brain, and students of old wore garlands of it while they studied.

The first herb of Mercury here. Dill water is the old gripe-water for a colicky infant, and in folk magic dill hung over the door or the cradle turned away the evil eye and witchcraft.

Culpeper commended fennel above all to clear and strengthen the sight, and the atlas records it among the nine sacred herbs of old lore, hung over the door at Midsummer against evil.

The commonest of pot-herbs carries a shadow of the grave. The Greeks wove parsley into funeral wreaths and told that it sprang from the blood of the hero Archemorus, and the old saying held that its seed goes nine times to the Devil before it grows.

A grey, bitter herb that Culpeper commended for the chest and lungs, still made into candy and syrup for coughs. It was also reckoned one of the bitter herbs of the Passover and burned to break enchantments.

Here the path turns to Venus. Thyme was the emblem of courage, for Greek and Roman soldiers bathed in it before battle, and in faery lore a brew of it let mortal eyes behold the little folk.

Among the most sacred of the old herbs, the holy herb of the Druids and of the Roman altars, used to sweep and purify altar stones and worn as an amulet against enchantment, while Culpeper valued it for the nerves and for headache.

Named Achillea for Achilles, who was said to have used it to stanch his soldiers' wounds. The same herb turns up in folk custom as a dream-giver and as the dried stalks that cast the ancient Chinese oracle.

The mother of herbs and the traveller's herb, tucked into the shoe so a wayfarer might walk far without weariness. It closes the path as the herb of dreams, brewed or laid in a pillow for vivid, prophetic dreaming.