If you
are of a certain age, Grandma’s medicine
cabinet probably contained a bottle of witch hazel.
This age-old remedy appears to have fallen from
favor with the younger generations today but it’s
colorful past might persuade some of us to add
a bottle to our own medicine cabinets.
Never actually associated with real witches,
witch hazel was named wic-en, meaning “to
bend,” by the Anglo-Saxons, who named it
because of the pliancy of the small tree’s
wood. An ancient word for witchcraft is wicca,
which sounds so much like wic-en that the association
was made. Witches or not, forked twigs from the
plant were used for divining water and to determine
if someone was guilty of murder or theft.
Thought to be sacred to the god Thor of
Teutonic mythology, early Saxons located their
temples in witch hazel groves. The earliest English
Christian church, built at Glastonbury, was made
using woven hazel twigs. Witch hunters carried
hazel to ward off the evil eye and Saint Patrick
used a hazel rod to banish the snakes from Ireland.
On this side of the pond, Native Americans
used witch hazel poultices to ease swelling and
to soothe hemorrhoids and eye inflammations. It
helped stop bleeding and relieved mouth and throat
maladies. It was thought to be an effective all-purpose
tonic when taken internally.
European settlers quickly came to appreciate
the medicinal qualities of witch hazel and it
became a popular home remedy. 1882, the US Pharmacopeia
listed it as an official drug. The distilled witch
hazel available in pharmacies today is used by
modern herbalists when treating cuts, bruises,
swelling, conjunctivitis, hemorrhoids, and varicose
veins. It is used commercially in skin cleansers
and after-shave lotions for its mildly astringent
qualities.
A bottle of witch hazel in the medicine
cabinet might be kind of like having a bottle
of magic in the house. Just ask Grandma.
Reference
Kruger, Anna; An Illustrated Guide to Herbs: Their
Medicine and Magic; A Dragon’s World Book;
Limpsfield and London; 1993
|
