298 Artemisia vulgaris
Prussia. The practice of smoking the dried leaves as a substitute for tobacco,
general among country lads in Berkshire till late in the nineteenth century
(under the name ‘docko’^205 ), may well be a relic of that, for unlike colt’s-foot
it appears to have had no medical justifications attached to it. As the plant
shares with tansy and the wormwoods vermicidal properties, that it may have
been used like them to purge the system of internal parasites is another pos-
sibility. If so, however, those two rivals must have usurped such former pop-
ularity as it may have enjoyed for that, for no mentions of such an application
have been found. (An eighteenth-century record from Moray of its use as a
purge, boiled in whey,^206 does not indicate the purpose of the purging.) And
though ‘mugwort’ means midge-herb, it seems to have been rated much infe-
rior to those others for keeping away insects, too—records of its serving that
function have been traced from Devon,^207 Sussex^208 and Berwickshire^209
alone.
A further well-attested property of the plant is its ability to restore men-
strual flow, ease delivery and cleanse the womb, for which functions it was
once highly valued by midwives and nurses. Not for nothing is the genus
named after the Greek goddess Artemis, the patron of maternity and child-
birth, for since ancient times mugwort has been the female plant above all
others, the mater herbarum or herba matrum.It may indeed be on account of
the similarity of its leaves that motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) acquired,
through misidentification, a comparable degree of respect in the Isle of Man
under the name ‘she-vervain’. Though long valued in official medicine in
cases of difficult parturition, mugwort features in the folk records in this and
allied connections much less than expected but has probably suffered, like
abortifacients in general, from a degree of reticence on the part of both col-
lectors and informants. Only Northamptonshire,^210 the Highlands,^211 and
Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides^212 appear to have yielded information, the last
two in the guise ofliath-lus,a Gaelic name identified^213 with Artemisia vul-
garis.Tansy’s comparable role has already been referred to above.
In common with tansy once again (and wormwood, too) mugwort has
also enjoyed a reputation for easing colds, heavy coughs and especially con-
sumption (Cornwall,^214 South Wales,^215 ‘Scotland’,^216 Londonderry^217 ) as
well as sciatica (Cumbria^218 ). With wormwood it seems to have served as a
digestive interchangeably (Berwickshire,^219 the Highlands^220 ) and as a
diuretic like the other two it was once eaten as a vegetable in Devon in order
to dissolve ‘the stone’.^221 Finally, it is said to have shared in Ireland worm-
wood’s apparently rare use there as a treatment for epilepsy.^222