Witching Herbs

Witching Herbs starting top left then clockwise: Opium Poppy, Henbane, Monkshood (Aconite), Belladonna. According to one tradition, opium poppies sprung from the tears

of Aphrodite when she mourned for her beloved Adonis.

"O poppy-buds, that in the golden air,

Wave heavy hanging censers of delight,

Give me an anodyne for my despair;

O crimson poppy-blooms, O golden blight,

O careless drunken heavy poppy-flowers,

Make that the day for me be as the night.

Give me to lie down in your drowsy bowers,

That having breathed of your rich perfume,

My soul may have all-rest through all the hours;

So shall I lie within my little room.

While the poor tyrants of the world go by,

Restfully shrouded in your velvet gloom,

Beneath the wide face of the cloudless sky."

Paul Barnitz, The Book of Jade

by South Utsire