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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

    NewCaution
    Botanical Name
    Rhamphospermum nigrum

    Black Mustard

    Black mustard is an upright annual native to the cooler parts of North Africa, temperate Europe and parts of Asia, close enough to cabbage and turnip to share their tribe. It reaches about 1.2 metres, with large stalked leaves that are hairy or bristly at the base, four-petalled yellow flowers in summer and beaked pods of small seeds, dark brown to black, which give the plant its Latin epithet and are the reason it is grown. Carried as a crop to North America's western seaboard, it now runs wild there as an invasive, and Kynes notes that it is reckoned a noxious weed in some places. Columella wrote of it in the first century, and Grieve records that Greek physicians credited its discovery to Aesculapius; the word mustard comes from must, new grape juice, made fiery with the ground seed. It is often taken for the seed of the Gospel parable. Kynes traces it to Sumerian and Sanskrit texts of about 3000 BCE, tells of English brownies grinding the seed by night, and of seed strewn over thresholds in the American South to stop witches, who had to pick up every grain. Cunningham carries the seed in a red sachet against colds and to sharpen the mind, sprinkles or buries it at the door to keep supernatural beings out, and has women eat it for fertility. Culpeper made it an herb of Mars, with a share for Aries.

    Caution

    AHPA safety class 1 taken internally and class 2d used externally. Not to be put on the skin of children under six, or of anyone with varicose veins, severe circulatory damage or another vein disorder. A mustard plaster left on longer than a quarter to half an hour can blister the skin, sometimes leaving weeping, slow-healing ulcers and dead tissue, and the irritation lasts a day or two. Taken by mouth it can irritate the digestive tract, so people with a peptic ulcer or gastric bleeding should take care, and large doses can bring on enteritis, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Allergic reactions, including hives and anaphylactic shock, have followed both internal and external use. Animal studies suggest the seed may alter blood sugar, so people with diabetes should consult a qualified practitioner first. Safety in pregnancy and while nursing is not established. Cunningham marks it as not to be abused internally or taken long term.

    Forms

    • Oil
    • Seed

    Correspondences

    Elements
    Fire
    Celestial Bodies
    Mars
    Zodiac Signs
    Aries
    Deities
    Asclepius (Greek)

    Categories

    • Fertility
    • Healing
    • Justice
    • Legal Matters
    • Prosperity
    • Protection
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