Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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A Herb of Saturn, and of Sealing and Binding

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A Herb of Saturn, and of Sealing and Binding

Culpeper placed Solomon's seal under Saturn and repeated the tradition that the sealing marks on the root revealed, by the doctrine of signatures, its power to seal up and close wounds. That same seal-lore gave the plant a place in protective and binding magic: the root was used in charms to seal a working, to bind and to guard, borrowing the authority of Solomon's ring over the spirit world. Its whole symbolism, sealing, closing, binding, protection, wisdom, grows from the single vivid image of the seal-scarred root and the great king whose name it bears, a plain botanical feature drawing to itself one of the richest names in magical tradition.

A plain caution belongs alongside the old wound-lore: the plant's blue-black autumn berries are mildly toxic if eaten, capable of causing vomiting and digestive upset, so the same woodland plant valued for closing wounds on the skin is not to be eaten itself, a distinction worth stating plainly. In the modern garden Solomon's seal remains valued simply for its quiet elegance, arching stems and hanging bells suited to shade, so that a plant once carrying the authority of a legendary king's ring now serves mostly as an unassuming, well-behaved border perennial.

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