[1] Mugwort (artemisia vulgaris). The OE Herbarium
MS V describes the plant as useful in that: 'when someone wishes to begin
a journey, have him take this herb artemisia [=mugwort] in his hand and
have it with him, then he will not find the journey too great; and
also it drives off demonic possession and in the house where he has
it inside, it forbids evil leechdoms and also it averts the eye of evil
men'. Mugwort has been used for its stimulant properties, and an infusion
of it taken for fevers.
[click here for an image of Mugwort]
[2] Bradley takes
Regenmelde as a place name. Braekman
relates this 'proclamation' to one of Christ's last pronunciations
before the Ascension (Mark 16:18).
[3] Pollington suggests that 'Una' may simply be the feminine
form of Latin for 'one'.
[6] MS
�a
[6] Bonser suggests that 'the loathsome one' may be an epidemic,
possibly the yellow plague
[7] Waybread (plantago maior), greater plantain or dock,
called 'way-broad' in Old English for its wide leaves and tendency
to grow near roadsides. This plant's durability may be the source of
the idea that it may confer resilience in medico-magical applications.
Waybread was believed to be effective against headache and sore throat.
This plant, when pulverised, is effective as an anti-bacteria agent,
but it must be used only when fresh as it is chemically unstable.
[click here for an image of Waybread]
[8] MS
opone
[9a] MS
�y
[9a] MS
cr�te
[9b] MS
�y
[10a] MS
�y
[10b] MS
�y
[14] OE stune appears, from the instructions which follow
the verses, to be lamb's cress, though Pollington (112-3) states
that OE lombes cerse (lamb's cress) is not the modern plant known
as lamb's cress (cardamine hirsuta), but rather what is sometimes
called corn salad (valerianella locusta), which is
used as a winter vegetable and garden herb. The name stune appears
to be related to the verb stunan ('to combat') which occurs in
the following line. [click here for
an image of Lamb's Cress]
[16] OE sti�e (meaning 'rough, harsh, stiff') is also obscure
as a plant-name, but appears from the closing instructions to be
nettle (urtica dioica, urtica urens). The name 'nettle'
derives from a root meaning of 'spin, sew', and nettles were once grown
for their tough fibres which could be used like flax. Nettles can be
used as animal-fodder and even in making beer, tea, soup and porridge.
Its sap can be used as rennet (to curdle milk in cheese-making). The astringent
property of nettle causes it to still be used in commercially-available
preparations today. [click
here for an image of Nettle]
[20] MS
�a
[21] OE attorla�e, whose name means 'poison-hater', is
obscure. It is sometimes identified as betony (stachys betonica,
betonica officinalis), also known as bishopswort or woundwort,
once widely used in preparations to treat headache and palpitations.
It was also used as a sort of amulet to ward off harmful spirits, nightmares
and delusions. Its odour may well produce a calming effect which suggested
its use against nightmares and evil spirits. Another identification of
Attorlothe is with black nightshade (solanum nigrum), whose
berries may safely be consumed by adults, and whose leaves may be used
in a sophoric preparation (in some parts of Germany it is known as
Schlafbeere (='sleep-berries')).
[click here for an image of Betony and Black Nightshade]
[23] OE m�ge�a, whose name is based on OE m�g� (='maid,
young woman'), is the variety of chamomile still known sometimes
as mayweed or maythe (anthemis cotula). Its name
likely derives from its use to soothe menstrual pains as chamomile is known
for its relaxing, calming effects and is still popular as a infusion, being
sold as an 'herbal tea' which eases digestion and produces a calming effect.
Its flowers and leaves can be made into a poultice against piles and its
pungent odour is said to drive away insects. In Northumberland, Pollington
(140) claims, 'it was known as "Balder's brae", i.e. "brow" with an explicit
reference to the Norse god of reconciliation and male beauty.
[click here for an image of Chamomile (mayweed, maythe)]
[24] Aldorford is obscure - it may refer to the location of some
incidence from myth or folklore. The word means 'aldor-tree ford'.
[27] again, OE wergulu is obscure, from the following instructions,
it appears to be the crab-apple or wood sour appel
. Here the Indoeuropean serpent seems to be conflated with the Judeao-Christian
serpent in the Garden of Eden, with association between the apple (representative
of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?) and the serpent
[click here for an image
of Sour Apple]
[30] MS
ongan
[31] MS
henan
[31] North (86-7) suggests that this line 'may be reminiscent
of the [Norse] dragon N��hoggr ('Malice-Striker') in Volusp�
[part of the Elder Edda]; and of the na�r fr�nn, ne�an fr�
Ni�afiollom ('glittering adder, from down below the mountains
of his ?descendants', [Volusp� 66]), that sucks the blood from corpses
in the world of the dead ([Volusp� 39]). It is appropriate that
the cure for snake-bite should come from the same region'.
Wyrmas and their poison (attor) appear throughout old Germanic
'charms' as symbolic figures of illness in general. A 9th-c. Old High German
charm reads:
Gang uz, Nesso,�������� mit niun nessinchilinon,
uz fonna marge in deo adra,�������� vonna den adrun in daz fleisk,
fonna demu fleiske in daz fel,�������� fonna demo velle in diz tulli.
(='Go out, worm, with nine little worms, out from [the] marrow into the veins,
from the veins into the flesh, from the flesh into the skin, from the skin
into this arrow')
Another charm in Old Saxon reads:
Gang �t, nesso,�������� mid nigun nessiklinon,
�t fana themo marge an that ben,�������� fan themo bene an that flesg,
ut fan themo flesgke an thia hud,�������� �t fan thera hud an thesa strala.
Drohtin, uuerthe so.
(='Go out, worm, with nine little worms, out from the marrow into the bone,
from the bone into the flesh, from the flesh into the skin, from the skin
into this arrow. Lord, make it so.')
[32a] This is one of two places in which the god Woden
(ON ��inn) appears in Old English poetry. The other is Maxims
I l.132 in the Exeter Book.
��inn appears to correspond to
the Roman Mercury, and is often associated with magic and divination,
with a famous passage in the Elder Edda relating how he gained
secret 'runic' knowledge - see n. 32b and esp. n. 37-38 below.
[32b] the nine wuldortanas, or 'glory-twigs', 'glory-rods',
with which Woden defeats the serpent, may be rune-carved pieces
of wood. Tacitus relates in his Germania, chap. 10: 'Auspicia sortesque
ut qui maxime observant: sortium consuetudo simplex. virgam frugiferae
arbori decisam in surculos amputant eosque notis quibusdam discretos super
candidam vestem temere ac fortuito spargunt. mox, si publice consultetur,
sacerdos civitatis, sin privatim, ipse pater familiae, precatus deos caelumque
suspiciens ter singulos tollit, sublatos secundum impressam ante notam
interpretatur.' (='To divination and the lot [the Germans] pay as much
attention as any one: the method of drawing lots is uniform. A bough is
cut from a nut-bearing tree and divided into slips: these are distinguished
by certain runes and spread casually and at random over white cloth: afterwards,
should the inquiry be official the priest of the state, if private the father
of the family in person, after prayers to the gods and with eyes turned to
heaven, takes up one slip at a time till he has done this on three separate
occasions.')
[36] Chervil (anthriscus cerefolium) is known principally
(today as well) as a culinary herb.
[click here for an image of Chervil]
However, it has also been used as a remedy for sore stomach and also
in a poultice for aching joints. Fennel ( foeniculum vulgare
) has anise/licorice-flavoured seeds still used in food today. It has
been used to settle sore stomachs and also in purgatives. In later mediaeval
times it was hung over doorways on Midsummer's Eve to ward off both sorcery
and fire. [click here for an image
of Fennel]
[37-38]The 'hanging lord' is presumably Christ on the Cross.
However, at least there seems here to be a syncretism or conflation of
Christ with Woden, who also suffered, not on a cross, but on a tree.
Woden, or at least the Norse ��inn, hanged himself on a tree and
wounded himself with his own spear as part of a 'shamanistic' journey which
gains him mysterious runic knowledge, this is recounted in the H�vam�l
in the Elder Edda :
'Veit ec, at ec hecc vindgamei�i �
n�tr allar n�o,
geiri unda�r oc gefinn ��ni,
si�lfre si�lfom m�r,
� �eim mei�i, er mangi veit,
hvers hann af r�tom renn.
Vi� hleifi mic s�ldo n� vi� hornigi,
n�sta ec ni�r;
nam ec upp r�nar, oepandi nam,
fell ec aptr �a�an.' (H�vam�l 138-9)
(='I know that I hung on the windy branch for nine whole nights,
wounded with a spear and given to ��inn, myself to myself, on the branch
that no-one knows from whose roots it runs. They revived me neither with
a loaf nor with a horn; I peered down; I took up runic staves, screaming
I learnt runic secrets; I fell back from there/then'. [translation from
North (84)])
[39] it is unclear what the VII worulde 'seven worlds'
are. It may mean the seven other planets, though it is reminiscent of
the (nine) Norse worlds: Mi�gar�r (middle-earth), Ljossalfheimer
(light elf home), Svart�lfheimer (black elf home), �sgar�r
(place of the Aesir), Hel (place of the dead), Vanaheimer
(home of the Vanir), M�spellheimer (world of muspell), Niflheimer
(the dark world), Jotunheimer (world of giants). However, one can
easily imagine that, if the Anglo-Saxons had a similar concepts of 'worlds',
they may well have had a different number. Or there may have been a corruption
either in the text or in the charm itself. See
the Anglo-Saxon Heathenism site's page on A-S cosmology
for further speculation.
[43] MS
and wi� ��s hond wi� freabegde - em. from Grendon/Holthausen
(1920). Bradley suggests
f{�r}b{r}egde ('sudden peril?').
[44] MS
manra ; em. from Bradley
[47] MS
�a
[47] MS
runlan - em. mine ; some editors gloss
runlan
attre as 'running' poison or 'foul' poison, though this seems out
of place since every other poison is designated by colour
[48] MS
wedenan , which occurs again at l. 50b - em. to
avoid repetition from Grattan & Singer
[52] Griffiths (182, fn.30) states 'bl�d should not imply
"blister" (bl�dre) but have the meaning of a blast of air. Thus in
�lfric's "Life of Cuthbert" it is used of (seals') breath and (fire's) blast,
in the latter case paralleling �a �ttrigan flan deoflicere costnunge
(the poisonous arrows of devilish temptation)'
[58] MS
alde ; em. from Cockayne
[60] MS nothing ; addition from Holthausen (1920)