A Herb of Saturn, That Raises Smoke Against Spirits

Culpeper placed fumitory under Saturn. Its smoke-name gave it a natural place in the practice of fumigation and exorcism: fumitory was burned so that its smoke might drive off evil spirits and dispel the influence of malign magic, the plant of earth-smoke put to the ancient use of smoke against the unseen. It was also used in old charms for clearing away hostile forces and for consecrating tools. A humble field weed, fumitory owes its whole symbolic life to its evocative name, which tied a fine-leaved pink-flowered plant to smoke, and smoke to the driving-out of spirits.

In France, where the plant is called fumeterre, earth-smoke translated directly, fumitory has a continuous history as a mild liver and digestive remedy and remains a licensed ingredient in some French herbal preparations today, a living regulated use quite distinct from the older smoke-and-exorcism magic recorded above. The plant's alkaloids, chiefly protopine and related compounds, give some pharmacological plausibility to this gentler reputation, and it is one of relatively few once-magical fumigation herbs to have kept any place at all in modern regulated pharmacy, most of its old companions in the smoke-lore having faded into pure folklore.