One of the favourite remedies of Scotch Witches is the Woodbine or Honeysuckle. In effecting their magical cures, they cause their patients to pass a certain number of times (usually nine) through a “girth” or garland of Woodbine, repeating the while certain incantations and invocations. According to Spenser, Witches in the Spring of every year were accustomed to do penance, and purify themselves by bathing in water wherein Origane and Thyme had been placed:--
“Till on a day (that day is every Prime, When witches wont do penance for their crime) I chaunst to see her in her proper hew, Bathing herself in Origane and Thyme.”
In Lower Germany, the Honeysuckle is called _Albranke_, the Witch-snare. Long running plants and entangled twigs are called Witch-scapes, and the people believe that a Witch hard pursued could escape by their means.
On the _Walpurgisnacht_, the German Witches are wont to gather Fern to render themselves invisible. As a protection against them, the country people, says Aubrey, “fetch a certain Thorn, and stick it at their house door, believing the Witches can then do them no harm.” On the way to the orgies of this night, the Oldenburg Witches are reputed to eat up all the red buds of the Ash, so that on St. John’s Day the Ash-trees appear denuded of them.
The German Witches are cunning in the use and abuse of roots: for example, they recommend strongly the _Meisterwurzel_ (root of the master), the _Bärwurzel_ (root of the bears), the _Eberwurzel_ (root of the wild boar), and the _Hirschwurzel_ (root of the stag--a name given to the Wild Parsley, to the Black Gentian, and to the _Thapsia_), as a means of making a horse run for three consecutive days without feeding him.
On St. John’s Eve, the Witches of Russia are busily engaged searching on the mountains for the _Gentiana amarella_, and on the morning of St. John’s Day, for the _Lythrum silicaria_, without having found which no one can hope to light upon the former herb. These herbs being hostile to Witches, are sought by them only to be destroyed.
In Franche-Comté they tell of a certain satanic herb, of which the juice gives to Witches the power of riding in the air on a broomstick when they wish to proceed to their nocturnal meeting.