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Reference

Compendium

Ingredients for spellwork: their formal and folk names, categories, deities and forms, with the sources behind them.

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    313 ingredients

    313 ingredients

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    Botanical Name
    Arnica montana

    Arnica

    Arnica is an aromatic perennial of the daisy family, about 18 to 60 centimetres tall, with a flat rosette of downy, oval leaves and large orange-yellow flower heads from May to August. It grows across most of Europe on poor, acid ground, above all in alpine meadows up to almost three thousand metres, and never on lime; it is becoming rarer as farming intensifies and wild plants are gathered for sale. It has a long history in European folk medicine, where a tincture of the flowers or the root was applied to sprains, bruises and wounds, although the plant is toxic when swallowed. German custom was to pick it at Midsummer and hang it on houses as a guard against lightning, hail and fire. Hildegard von Bingen linked it with wolves and noted it as an aphrodisiac used in love magic, and the old name leopard’s bane comes from confusing it with a different plant, Doronicum pardalianches. Kynes associates it with water, Saturn and Hecate, and uses it for love, protection, peace and psychic ability: a candle dressed with its oil serves a love spell, its seeds are scattered at the corners of a property to raise a shield of safety, and its energy quietens restless spirits in a home.

    Caution

    AHPA safety class 3 for internal use and 2d for external use: not to be taken by mouth unless a qualified expert oversees it, and never to be applied to broken skin or open wounds. Swallowing it has caused severe poisoning, with fever, racing heart and raised liver enzymes, and deaths have been reported; it irritates the mucous membranes and can cause stomach pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. It contains sesquiterpene lactones that cause allergic contact dermatitis in sensitive people, and people allergic to other plants of the daisy family, sunflower, marigold and feverfew among them, should be cautious. Overdoses have caused miscarriage, and safety while nursing is not established. Kynes adds that long external use can irritate the skin.

    Forms

    • Flower
    • Oil
    • Root
    • Seed

    Correspondences

    Elements
    Water
    Celestial Bodies
    Saturn
    Deities
    Hecate (Greek)

    Folk Names

    • European Arnica
    • Leopard's Bane
    • Mountain Arnica
    • Mountain Daisy
    • Mountain Tobacco
    • Sneezewort
    • Wolf's Bane
    • Wolfsblume

    Categories

    • Confidence
    • Divination
    • Love
    • Peace
    • Protection
    • Psychic Work
    • Purification
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