Herbs and The Herbal Code

In old magickal recipes and spells, strange ingredients are often called for that cannot always be taken literally. In one ancient Greco-Egyptian spell, the recipe called for "the navel of a male crocodile", which really meant pond weed; "the heart of a baboon" meant oil of lily. Here’s what those unusual nouns really meant. 

The sacrifice in folklore was usually an egg buried in the ground or mandrake root carved in a crude human shape or poppet. 

Adder’s tongue: Plantain
Bat’s wing: Holly leaf
Bat’s Wool: Moss
Blood: Elder sap
Bloody fingers: Foxglove
Bodily Fluids: House leek
Brains: Congealed gum from a cherry tree
Bull’s blood: Horehound
Corpse candles: Mullein
Crocodile dung: Black earth
Dragon’s scales: Bistort leaves
Ear of an ass: Comfrey
Ear of a goat: St. John`s Wort
Eyes: Eyebright
Fingers: Cinquefoil
Hair: Maidenhair fern
Hand: The expanded frond from a male fern used to make the true hand of glory, which is nothing more than a candle made of wax mixed with fern
Heart: Walnut
Lion’s tooth: Dandelion
Skin of a man: Fern
Skull: Skullcap
Snake: Bistort (Polygonurn Bistorta)
Snake’s Blood: Hematite stone
Tongue of dog: Hound’s tongue (Cynoglossum Officinale)
Tooth or teeth: Pinecones
Unicorn horn: True unicorn root (Aletris farinosa)
Worms: Gnarled, thin roots of a local tree