Garlic

Garlic is a bulbous perennial of the onion genus, native to Central Asia, north-eastern Iran and the Himalayan foothills and now naturalised in Mediterranean Europe, China and elsewhere. Flat, pointed leaves rise from a bulb of four to fifteen cloves wrapped in papery white skin, and the flowering stem first curls into a scape tipped with a pointed bud, then straightens to bear a round head of small white to pinkish flowers. It has been grown in Mesopotamia for at least four thousand years, and bulbs were found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Few plants carry as much protective lore. Greeks and Romans used it as a cure-all and as a guard against magic and the restless dead, and Roman soldiers ate it for courage; Anglo-Saxons used it to break elfin enchantment; Central Europeans hung it against witches, demons, werewolves and vampires, and in the Balkans it was set in a corpse's mouth to keep the dead in the grave. German miners wore it against the spirits of the shafts and sailors carried it against shipwreck. Garlic was eaten on Hecate's festival days and left for her at crossroads. Magically it guards homes, children and brides, keeps out thieves and envious people, and drives off evil spirits, bitten or sprinkled as powder; eaten, it is said to stir lust; and rubbed on a lodestone it robs the stone of its power.