OK everyone I think I finally got this. I could be totally off. But here it goes. (p.s. @binathewitch I am SO SORRY for spamming your messages with questions about this and I hope Iâm not super wrong)Â
Itâs pretty well known that the ingredients used by witches in movies/media (like Shakespeareâs Macbeth âeye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dogâ scene) are actually meant to stand for real herbs under these names.Â
It seems that there are three main ways that herbs get these coded names.
1. One way is through straight up code passed down by hereditary witches/ from teachers to students, and the herb and itâs code usually donât have much in common. There are âcodesâ for the specific part of a plant as well as for the plantâs name itself. The code for the parts of the plants is somewhat descriptive. binathewitch lists some examples very well in their post, like some coded parts being-Â
paw, foot, leg, scale: leafÂ
hair: dried version of the herbÂ
as well as some coded plant names likeÂ
and many other example that binathewitch gives in their post here.Â
2. The second way plants get these âcodedâ names is by description alone. They will ignore everything I wrote for #1, and go ONLY by what the plant looks like. For example, comfrey is called âear of an assâ and you can see why pretty clearly:Â
So, because these two naming systems are different, the same rules donât apply. Even though âcatâ is short for catnip, and âpawâ means leaf, âcatâs pawâ is not catnip leaf, itâs ground ivy. Which one can also understand, because ground ivy literally looks like a catâs lil paw: Â
One LAST exmaple for this is the famous âeye of newtâ. It means mustard seed, instead of following the rule of âeyeâ meaning the inner blossom of a plant. And thatâs because mustard seeds literally look like lil brown newt eyes:Â
Through this step I learned that âwortâ meant a medicinal/edible herbaceous plant, and I had been thinking it was similar to wart (like a blemish) for YEARS lol so âDragonâs Wortâ is code for bistort, which is great because it literally looks like a little dragon, and âDragon Scalesâ as an ingredient just means bistort leaves. Â
3. The other weird names are given either colloquially, historically, or by etymology. Something that just became a common name, something that happened historically that gave it itâs âcodeâ, or by translations and linguistic origins.Â
Example of Colloquial odd names:Â
âMonkeys liceâ or âBeggarâs tickâ for Bidens alba got those names colloquially because theyâre just so annoying when they get all over you, theyâre âan irritant befitting a beggarâ.Â
âWitchâs Candleâ for mullein was given that name because you can dip the stalks in oil and burn them like a torch. It is unclear to me whether witches used these or whether people used it to ward off witches.Â
Example of Historical odd names:Â
âGraveyard dirtâ or âgraveyard dustâ is used to mean mullein or mugwort. Many witches do/did use real graveyard dirt for spirit work, and then occult stores started selling real graveyard dirt to make some money. When tampering with graves became illegal, they sold powdered mullein or powdered mugwort and said it was graveyard dirt/dust.Â
Example of odd names from translations:Â
âLionâs Toothâ is one most people know means Dandelion, from medieval latinâs âdens lionisâ to the french âdent de lionâ (both literally lionâs tooth), to our âdandelionâ.Â
Another one is âFrogâs Footâ or just âFrogâ. It meant buttercup, as the scientific name Ranunculus is late latin for âlittle frogâ, and was given that name because the plant likes to grow in bogs/moist areas. Then âFrogâ also meant cinquefoil flower, because it looks very similar to buttercup. In this case, the rule of âfootâ meaning leaf doesnât apply, âfrogâs footâ doesnât mean buttercup leaf, it just a name for the whole plant.Â
I didnât list all of the ones that I have written down because it would be a very long post, but I did want to post about how these âcode wordsâ seem to be decided. But again, I could be way off lolÂ
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