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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
    Elymus repens

    Couch Grass

    Couch grass is a widespread perennial grass whose home range covers most of Europe and Asia, the Arctic and north-west Africa. Taken elsewhere in the cooler north as fodder or to hold soil against erosion, it has often escaped to become an invasive weed. Its stems rise to between 40 and 150 centimetres, with flat, hairy leaves and an upright flower spike that Kynes likens to an ear of wheat, and it blooms from late June into August. Creeping rhizomes carry it quickly through grassland and make it hard to clear from a garden, since every broken piece can grow into a new plant. Grazing animals feed on its foliage and buntings and finches on its seed, and in traditional Austrian medicine the rhizome was a remedy for fever. Kynes treats it under grasses in general, whose lore across Europe and the British Isles gave them power to reach the supernatural, to turn aside the evil eye and to undo magic already worked. Cunningham files it as witch grass: carried, or scattered beneath the bed, to draw new lovers; used in unhexing and uncrossing; its infusion sprinkled round a property to drive entities off; and worn to lift depression.

    Caution

    AHPA safety class 1 (can be safely consumed when used appropriately), with no known contraindications, drug interactions or side effects; it notes that couch grass is a diuretic. No concerns were found for pregnancy or nursing, but its safety in either has not been conclusively established. Cunningham codes the root as currently recognised as safe.

    Forms

    • Root

    Correspondences

    Elements
    Earth
    Celestial Bodies
    Jupiter

    Folk Names

    • Common Couch
    • Dog Grass
    • Medusa's Head
    • Quack Grass
    • Quick Grass
    • Quitch
    • Quitch Grass
    • Scutch Grass
    • Twitch
    • Twitch Grass
    • Witch Grass
    • Witches Grass

    Categories

    • Abundance
    • Communication
    • Divination
    • Love
    • Lust
    • Manifestation
    • Protection
    • Psychic Work
    • Uncrossing
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