Rue (Ruta graveolens)

RUE
(Ruta graveolens)

Folk Names: Bashoush (Coptic), Garden Rue, German Rue, Herb of Grace, Herbygrass, Hreow, Mother of the Herbs, Rewe, Ruta. I see that Ellen Dugan also mentions the Folk Name Witch Bane for it too.

Gender: Masculine
Planet:  Mars (so can be linked to Tuesdays)
Element: Fire
Deities: Diana, Aradia
Powers: Healing, Mental Powers, Exorcism, Love

Magickal Uses: Rue leaves placed on the forehead relieve headaches.
Worn around the neck rue aids in recuperation from illnesses and also wrds off future health problems. Rue is added to healing incenses and poppets. Fresh rue, sniffed, clears the head in love matters and also improves mental processes.
   Rue added to baths breaks all hexes and curses that may have been cast against you, and it is also added to exorcism incenses and mixtures. It is protective when hung up at the door or placed in sachets, and the fresh leaves rubbed on the floorboards send back any ill spells sent against you. The Romans used rue as a perservative against the evil eye, and the plant was also carried to guard the bearer from poisons, werewolves, and all manner of ills. A spring of fresh rue is used as a sprinkler to distribute salt water throughout the house. This clears it of negativity.
  Mix fresh rue juice with morning dew and sprinkle in a circle around you while performing magickal acts for protection, if desired or needed. Rue is another plant to grow best when stolen, and indeed, its presence in garden beautifies and protects it. For some reason toads have an aversion to rue. 
[From: "Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs"] 

   This talk of wearing rue around the neck or placing leaves of it on the forehead make me wonder if it is a very good idea.  I would think that the touch of it against the skin could cause a rash or something..

  The rue is an evergreen shrub that can grow from two to three feet in height. It bears small, bright, buttonlike yellow flowers in the summer. The leaves are smooth, deeply divided and have a greenish blue color. The scent of the rue is described as bracing and the leaves of this plant are covered in oil glands. 

  Ellen Dugan says she grows her rue in a sunny perennial gardens.  I have mine pretty much in the same situation.... but I know her garden(s) must be a lot more organized and neat looking than mine.  I kind let my perennial herbs grow mostly on their own.  It is pretty much every plant for itself..  Dugan says she clips her rue into a neatly shaped shrub every summer after it has finished blooming.... and see mine is branching out and reaching out to touch you as walk by.  Maybe tomorrow I will get out there and do some trimming.  It is recommened to wear gardening gloves when clipping this shrub because the oil from the leaves can give you a mild rash.  Discarded rue foilage is also supposed to help your compost pile break down faster. So tossing a few stems into your compost heap every year is probably a good idea.

   Women who are pregnant should avoid contact with rue. 

  In the language of flowers, rue signifies grace, clear vision, virture, atonement and fresh starts. Rue is a popular herb with Italian traditional Strega Witches. Rue foilage is a common theme in magickal silver jewelry called the cimaruta as well.

Warning:  Rue is a toxic plant. Brushing against the foilage may cause contact dermatitis. Do not take internally. It is also an abortifacient.

And some information on Rue from "A Modern Herbal" by Mrs. M. Grieve....

Rue, a hardy, evergreen, somewhat shrubby plant, is a native of Southern Europe. The stem is woody in the lower part, the leaves are alternate, bluish-green, bi- or tripinnate, emit a powerful, disagreeable odour and have an exceedingly bitter, acrid and nauseous taste. The greenish-yellow flowers are in terminal panicles, blossoming from June to September. In England Rue is one of our oldest garden plants, cultivated for its use medicinally, having, together with other herbs, been introduced by the Romans, but it is not found in a wild state except rarely on the hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. This wild form is even more vehement in smell than the garden Rue. The whole plant has a disagreeable and powerful odour. The first flower that opens has usually ten stamens, the others eight only.

---Cultivation---The plant grows almost anywhere, but thrives best in a partially sheltered and dry situation. Propagation may be effected: (1) by seeds, sown outside, broadcast, in spring, raked in and the beds kept free from weeds, the seedlings, when about 2 inches high, being transplanted into fresh beds, allowing about 18 inches each way, as the plants become busy; (2) by cuttings, taken in spring and inserted for a time, until well rooted, in a shady border; (3) by rooted slips, also taken in spring. Every slip or cutting of the young wood will readily grow, and this is the most expeditious way of raising a stock.

Rue will live much longer and is less liable to be injured by frost in winter when grown in a poor, dry, rubbishy soil than in good ground.

Rue is first mentioned by Turner, 1562, in his Herbal, and has since become one of the best known and most widely grown simples for medicinal and homely uses.

The name Ruta is from the Greek reuo (to set free), because this herb is so efficacious in various diseases. It was much used by the Ancients; Hippocrates specially commended it, and it constituted a chief ingredient of the famous antidote to poison used by Mithridates. The Greeks regarded it as an antimagical herb, because it served to remedy the nervous indigestion they suffered when eating before strangers, which they attributed to witchcraft. In the Middle Ages and later, it was considered - in many parts of Europe - a powerful defence against witches, and was used in many spells. It was also thought to bestow second sight.

Piperno, a Neapolitan physician, in 1625, commended Rue as a specific against epilepsy and vertigo, and for the former malady, at one time, some of this herb used to be suspended round the neck of the sufferer.

Pliny, John Evelyn tells us, reported Rue to be of such effect for the preservation of sight that the painters of his time used to devour a great quantity of it, and the herb is still eaten by the Italians in their salads. It was supposed to make the sight both sharp and clear, especially when the vision had become dim through over-exertion of the eyes. It was with 'Euphrasy and Rue' that Adam's sight was purged by Milton's Angel.

At one time the holy water was sprinkled from brushes made of Rue at the ceremony usually preceding the Sunday celebration of High Mass, for which reason it is supposed it was named the Herb of Repentance and the Herb of Grace. 'There's rue for you and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.'

Gerard tells us: 'the garden Rue, which is better than the wild Rue for physic's use, grows most profitably, as Dioscorides said, under a fig tree.' But this is, probably, only a reference, originally, to the fact that it prefers a sheltered position.

Country-people boil its leaves with treacle, thus making a conserve of them. These leaves are curative of croup in poultry. It has also been employed in the diseases of cattle.

Shakespeare refers again to Rue in Richard III:

'Here in this place
I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;
Rue, even for ruth, shall shortly here be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.'

The following is a quotation from Drayton:

'Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,
With nine drops of the midnight dew
From lunarie distilling.'

The latter was the Moonwort (Lunaria), often called 'honesty' - a common garden flower, with cross-shaped purple blossoms, and round, clear silvery-looking seed-vessels.

Chaucer also calls it Lunarie.

Gerard says:

'If a man be anointed with the juice of rue, the poison of wolf's bane, mushrooms, or todestooles, the biting of serpents, stinging of scorpions, spiders, bees, hornets and wasps will not hurt him.'

Rue-water sprinkled in the house 'kills all the fleas,' says an old book

The juice was used against earache.

Rue has been regarded from the earliest times as successful in warding off contagion and preventing the attacks of fleas and other noxious insects. It was the custom for judges sitting at assizes to have sprigs of Rue placed on the bench of the dock against the pestilential infection brought into court from gaol by the prisoner, and the bouquet still presented in some districts to judges at the assizes was originally a bunch of aromatic herbs, given to him for the purpose of warding off gaol-fever.



It is one of the ingredients in the 'Vinegar of the Four Thieves.'

Plague, beware! Wormwood, peppermint, lavender, and rosemary in cider vinegar. Recipe here, herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs and my backyard.

So I take note that this Vinegar of Four Thieves does not contain Rue... but still

an interesting picture of it.

Years of experimentation using historical and modern recipes have helped create this recreation of a legendary liquid known as Four Thieves Vinegar.

My interpretation of Four Thieves is a concoction of white wine vinegar steeped in aromatic and anti-bac herbs such as garlic, rue, and wormwood for a number of days, then filtered and used in dilution with water for cleansing the house and other areas. It's remarkably effective against insects and bacteria, as well as an efficient cleanser which leaves a refreshing scent. I used a diluted spray of it to cure my apple trees of a debilitating fungus that had been plaguing them for years. I also got rid of the aphids on my Virginia Creeper and created a scent barrier against ants getting into my house.

Diluted with rosewater, it is used as a cosmetic, to tone the face, clear up eruptions, refresh clothing, and in a sponge nosegay, was kept near the face to ward off the Plague. Certain physicians are still called quacks due to the medieval practice of wearing a duck-like mask with a sponge of aromatic vinegar resting in the beak when visiting areas of contagion. Perhaps it's now an insult to call a doctor a quack because it implies their techniques are right out of the Middle Ages.

Four Thieves can be full strength for cleaning and disinfecting, as an insect discouragement or anti-fungal. It is also available in dilution with rose or lavender hydrosol as a cosmetic. Please let me know your preference when ordering. Price is for 100 ml for all types. Environmentally friendly with all natural, biodegradable ingredients!

$2 off shipping with the purchase of two items. Three or more and shipping is free!

*It should be used only with extreme caution during pregnancy,* as some of the herbs are abortifacient. I used it when I was pregnant with my son recently to no ill effects, but I took care not to get any on my skin.

Here is my exact recipe, for those that want to try it at home, or who want to see how crazy I get when I make these things.

Four Thieves:

Approx. the same sized twig piece of each:

fresh peppermint
fresh thyme
fresh rue
fresh rosemary
fresh wormwood
fresh sage

four cloves garlic (slightly crushed)
3 bay leaves
4 cloves
4 small pieces cinnamon bark

Place ingredients in old spaghetti jar. Fill remainder of jar with white wine vinegar, stir to get rid of bubbles, add lid, and place in sunlight, like windowsill. Herbs will lose colour after a few days. Then you can add a bit more herbs for a really strong batch.

Filter out in a few weeks.

Now this information and recipe was with a picture on Flicker website under Treasach's photostream ..

I know nothing about the ordering of it. (sobeit)

And from Alchemy Herbs: http://www.alchemy-works.com/

Four Thieves Vinegar/ Grave Robbers' Blend

Various histories of this concoction exist. One is that it was invented by a family of perfumers who occupied themselves with robbing the dead during the Black Death. Another is that four thieves in 18th-century France were condemned to buy the dead during a plague, and they used garlic soaked in vinegar to keep them safe. A third is that during a bout of malaria in New Orleans robbers used this vinegar to protect themselves while breaking into houses. Antiseptic and pesticidal, this vinegar probably protected them from getting the disease by keeping off bugs. More importantly for us, this vinegar protects from magickal attack.

2 ounces lavender tops
1.5 ounces each of rue, sage, mint, wormwood, and rosemary

1/2 ounce clary sage or chamomile

1/4 ounce each of cinnamon, cloves, garlic, and calamus root
Gallon of wine vinegar

(You can make red wine vinegar by adding some wine vinegar to a gallon of cheap red wine and letting it sit open for a week. Old champagne makes excellent vinegar also.)

Add all the ingredients to the vinegar and let sit for a month and a day. Whether you put it in the sun or not is up to you; you could consider how much Sun influence you want this to have. Another way to encourage "digestion" is to bury the body of the bottle in the ground, leaving the neck to stick up; this emphasizes Earth qualities. Keep covered either way. Strain and spray or rub on thresholds, portals, cracks, and corners for protection against unwanted entry by anything.

Some sites discuss using Four Thieves as protection from biological warfare. White vinegar poured onto a sanitary napkin and held over the nose and mouth can neutralize some types of tear gas. Other than that, I would not stake my life on vinegar of any type protecting me from chemical or biological weapons, but it can't hurt and is a lot better than duct tape.


And back to Ms. Grieve's information:


Culpepper recommends it for sciatica and pains in the joints, if the latter be 'anointed' with it, as also for 'the shaking fits of agues, to take a draught before the fit comes.' He also tells us that:

'the juice thereof warmed in a pomegranate shell or rind, and dropped into the ears, helps the pains of them. The juice of it and fennel, with a little honey, and the gall of a cock put thereunto, helps the dimness of the eyesight.'

In Saxony Rue has given its name to an Order. A chaplet of Rue, borne bendwise on bars of the Coat Armour of the Dukedom of Saxony, was granted by Frederick Barbarossa to the first Duke of Saxony, in 1181. In 1902 the King of Saxony conferred the Order of the Rautenkrone (Crown of Rue) on our present King, then Prince of Wales. Since the latter half of the seventeenth century, sprigs of Rue have been interlaced in the Collar of our Order of the Thistle.

---Parts Used and Constituents---The whole herb is used, the drug consisting of both the fresh and the dried herb. The tops of the young shoots contain the greatest virtues of any part of the plant. The shoots are gathered before the plant flowers.

The volatile oil is contained in glands distributed over the whole plant and contains caprinic, plagonic, caprylic and oenanthylic acids - also a yellow crystalline body, called rutin. Oil of Rue is distilled from the fresh herb. Water serves to extract the virtues of the plant better than spirits of wine. Decoctions and infusions are usually made from the fresh plant, or the oil may be given in a dose of from 1 to 5 drops. The dried herb - which is a greyish green - has similar taste and odour, but is less powerful. It is used, powdered, for making tea.


---Medicinal Action and Uses---Strongly stimulating and antispasmodic - often employed, in form of a warm infusion, as an emmenagogue. In excessive doses, it is an acro-narcotic poison, and on account of its emetic tendencies should not be administered immediately after eating.

It forms a useful medicine in hysterical affections, in coughs, croupy affections, colic and flatulence, being a mild stomachic. The oil may be given on sugar, or in hot water.

Externally, Rue is an active irritant, being employed as a rubefacient. If bruised and applied, the leaves will ease the severe pain of sciatica. The expressed juice, in small quantities, was a noted remedy for nervous nightmare, and the fresh leaves applied to the temples are said to relieve headache. Compresses saturated with a strong decoction of the plant, when applied to the chest, have been used beneficially for chronic bronchitis.

If a leaf or two be chewed, a refreshing aromatic flavour will pervade the mouth and any nervous headache, giddiness, hysterical spasm, or palpitation will be quickly relieved.

---Preparations and Dosages---Powdered herb, 15 to 30 grains. Fluid extract, 1/2 to 1 drachm.

  Also from http://www.alchemy-works.com/
 
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Ruta graveolens - Rue

  Some call this a Sun herb, which fits the yellow flowers, but the Mars connection is stronger. The Romans grew rue around their temples to Mars; it is considered sacred to him as well as to Diana and Aradia. Sensibly enough, this magick herb is good for purifying objects made of iron, Mars' metal, before consecrating them. As a Mars herb, it can be physically fierce--this plant's essential oil can cause blisters on the skin of sensitive people--but as a warrior, it is also magickally protective. During the Middle Ages, rue was hung in doorways and windows to keep evil spirits out and was given as a gift to the parents of newborns for protection; it is still thought to bring blessings and protection to one's home. Rue was sometimes called witchbane because people carried bunches to keep off pesky witches (you know who you are), and the expression "rue the day" is said to come from the practice of throwing rue at an enemy while cursing him. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Italians made amulets called "cimaruta" from tin or silver made to resemble the tops of rue. The tip of each branch was decorated with fertility symbols: phalli, horns, solar disks, crescent moons, fish, and keys. A cimaruta protected the wearer from the evil eye. Rue is also an ingredient in Four Thieves Vinegar. Other spiritual paths have recognized the potency of rue as well. Early Christians called it Herb of Grace because they asperged with it during exorcisms and before Mass, and the Prophet Mohammed blessed this herb alone. Nowadays, rue is thought to be ritually helpful in developing second sight, probably because it has been a medicinal herb for strained eyes since the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. Rue's flower essence helps one connect with the Fae. Rue is also known as Garden Rue, German Rue, Herbygrass, Hreow, Mother of the Herbs, Bashoush, Rude, and Rewe. \

In Herbalism:

  Rue was thought to protect against plague, and since people also rubbed their floors with fresh rue to repel fleas, it probably actually did protect them. Like other bitters (wormwood, for instance), rue has been used to get rid of worms. The rutin in rue is antispasmodic and thus good for intestinal cramps and coughs. However, an excess of rue causes vomiting, can interefere with the liver, and can even be fatal; don't use during pregnancy. Fresh leaves can cause dermatitis in senstive people, especially on hot sunny days when the essential oil is strongest. It can also interact negatively with blood thinning agents. This plant is bitter enough that overdosing on it is unlikely, showing once again that most plants let us know right away if they aren't meant to be scarfed down.

In Cooking:

  Fresh leaves are used in cooking in very small amounts and are said to give a flavor like strong blue cheese ("graveolens" means strong smell in Latin). Rue is in the citrus family and contains lots of rutin, the same bitter stuff that is in the white parts of oranges. As a culinary herb, it is commonly encountered in ancient Roman cooking and is sometimes still used in Italy; it is a favorite in Ethiopian dishes. It goes well with acidic flavors and is added to pickles. It also flavors meat, cheese, or eggs and tastes good with olives and capers in sauces. You can get the rue flavor without its bitterness by putting it in a boiling sauce for no more than a minute and then removing it. That way only the essential oils are extracted into the sauce and not the bitter rutin. Extracting into oil should also provide less of the bitter principle. Rue sometimes flavors liquors, as in grappa con ruta.

In the Garden:

  This perennial native of southern Europe and North Africa is now naturalized in North America and the Balkans. It can be grown in pots. Some believe that growing it near other herbs renders them unfit for use, and other folks do not like its smell, which can be especially strong if the leaves are bruised. Dogs and cats hate it, but caterpillars of the black swallowtail butterly love it. It is a semi-evergreen and will get larger in warm climates. Rue can grow in poor soil, and once it is established, it can stand hot, dry sites; water regularly until it is mature, though. It is good in knot gardens because it can be pruned into a hedge (prune in spring or after flowering to encourage bushiness). It goes well with light-colored flowers and is a nice rock garden plant. Rue can grow from zones 4-9 (temperate), but mulch it heavily in winter in northern areas to protect it, especially if you do not get much snow.
How to grow rue

   Surface sow seed (needs light to germinate) in peaty soil at 68°F (20°C) to germinate in 7-28 days. Transplant to full sun and fertile soil that is not too wet (keep well watered until it is established). This plant enjoys rocky soil. It gets 1.5-3 feet/45-60 cm tall. Prune in spring or after flowering for bushiness. Wear gloves when harvesting and don't touch leaves on hot sunny days; its essential oils can cause photodermatitis. It self-seeds easily when happy, so deadhead it if you don't want a lot more rue. It is perennial down to -40F (zone 4), but mulch in winter in the north. Once it gets going, you can propagate it by cutting off the tips of branches and rooting them. This plant can be fatal if ingested. It does not get along with mint.