A Brief History of Wortcunning & Spiritual Herbalism
The history of wortcunning is wild! This massive topic is full of twists and turns that weave between timelines, cultures, traditions, and places. While the complete history is far too complex for my non-historian and non-academic brain to properly untangle, I want to share with you some of the things about our shared spiritual herbalism histories that continue to impress on the way I do this work. My hope is that by understanding more about how the green wisdom made it to where we are, we can learn more about how we can be excellent stewards of this wisdom and nourish it for the generations to come. This short article is by no means an exhaustive presentation of wortcunning history- rather a survey of key points that I think are worth knowing by everyone invested in working with the plant spirits.
While our story is one of the history of herbalism, it really begins in pre-history. That massive space of time which we know very little about in concrete terms. Pre-history, the ages before we started recording things in one way or another, makes up a much greater span than recorded history by many times over. We don’t know much, but we can presuppose a great deal. Scholars can look at later cultures and traditions to get insight into how folks in the far ancient past may have lived, behaved, and experienced the world around them.
This is especially true for herbalism because we know that pre-historic peoples would have been in some kind of relationship with plants, and we have many later stories that tell myths of how the first humans learned about plants in the beginning. One of my favorite stories comes from the vast tapestry of Taoist wisdom where we learn of the God-sage Shen Nong who wandered the land (maybe all of China, maybe the whole world!) sitting with each plant, learning from them, and remembering their medicine. Legends like those of Shen Nong, Dhanvantari, and Airmid show us that our ancient ancestors knew that their herbal wisdom came from a past that was even ancient for them.
Looking at wisdom traditions from across the world, we can also see that pre-historic people also likely had three established sources of gaining herbal wisdom: animals, plants, and dreams.
ANIMALS
We can see in cave art and in the surviving tales of later cultures that our far ancient ancestors would watch the behaviors of animals to learn. They could watch bear, aurochs, and hart to see which foods they ate, which they avoided, and which they turned to during times of illness. They could also watch birds to learn about the plants that held powerful fibers.
PLANTS
It is also highly probable that our deep ancestors learned directly from the plants, as in the example of Shen Nong and Goddess Airmid. The nature of most plants is that of invitation. The generate colors, textures, patterns, scents, and flavors that entice us. By sitting with the plants, as we do in our lunar plant spirit journeys here, we open up our deeper faculties of perception and can learn directly from the plants themselves.
DREAMS
Human and plants are different kind of persons… but we meet in the liminal. The spaces both within us and around us that are and/or act as a space where our realities overlap and communication can take place. The plants speak to us from these liminal places- in our dreams and in our spiritual journeys which can be quite dream-like in their nature.
From these three sources of inspiration and wisdom we can understand how humans who were navigating illness, fear, and the elements in far ancient times would have turned to plants to help them along the way. But, this is just the beginning! The history of wortcunning really doesn;t begin until we settle into a specific place and time, so let’s go there now.
The area we now call the British Isles, and parts of continental Europe, have been inhabited by various peoples for hundreds of thousands of years, not necessarily without interruption. These lands have at times been frozen in ice, covered in water, impenetrable to people on foot or horseback, and sprawling with accessible space, depending on where and when we look. For the rest of out conversation, though, we simply need to be aware that these lands have been inhabited for a very long time- and that there were indigenous groups of people living on them as others came in.
The pre-Indo-European peoples were connected deeply to the land they were on and would have been quite aware of the plants, landforms, weather patterns, and animals that shared these spaces. While we know very few specifics about them aside from what we’ve found in archaeological tables and art, one thing is for sure- they worked with plants, give plants importance in art, ritual, and burial, and must have had existing animist practices in place before any other peoples arrived.
While scholars still debate the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Euopeans, we know a few things for sure. First this group of ethnically diverse people who were united by language, culture, and religion spread out to the four directions starting over 6,000 years ago. They ended up in areas as far apart as India and Ireland, and their culture became incredibly influential wherever they landed. They encountered people already living in many of the places they went, and we see from this point on a vast array of evolving cultures that are distinctly Indo-European with the unique dressings of the land and influences of indigenous people as well.
The Indo-European peoples brought some neat things with them wherever they wandered, including:
Horses
Chariots and wheels
Alcohol
A specific pantheon of deities which are still worshiped in places from India to Ireland to this day
Social structures, law, and ethics
Religious observances and rituals
Languages, the descendants of which are still spoken by almost half of the world today
These Indo-European people, over generations, became:
Greeks
Romans
Celts
Slavs
Germans
Indo-Iranians
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, these people were connected by language, culture, social structure, and religion- NOT by ethnicity. Anyone who tries to use the Indo-European people or any of their descendants as an excuse for racism, supremacy structures, or nationalism hasn’t read even the most basic of history books. Our deep ancestors were pluralistic, multi-ethnic, and melting pot. Their concern, culture after culture, was simply that someone was connected to their culture in respect and reciprocity- not by ethnicity.
So, these Indo-Europeans, then, were the cultural ancestors of most of the cultures from parts of India to Ireland. No wonder why our mythologies, languages, deities, and cosmologies are so similar!
From about 2,000BCE we see clear indications of botanical lore, ritual, and importance in many of the Indo-Euoprean groups. Plants show up in burial mounds, on artwork, in sacrificial fire pits, and in sacred groves.
Oh, this is just the beginning…
The peoples we now know as Celts were Indo-Europeans mixed with indigenous populations in the modern-day areas of France, Belgium, British Isles, Wales, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and Anatolia. I’m not entirely sure we know where they first settled in, but by 600BCE they were present across these areas and further. The Celtic culture was, once again, united by culture, language, religion, deities, and mythology- and was a diverse mix of ethnic groups and lands of origin.
From the Celts we see the emergence of Druidic plant lore as part of their advanced social structures and priestly class known as the Druids. From the Oak tree to Mistletoe, Chamomile to Yarrow, we see clear reverence for specific plants and inclusions of these plants in cared dates and rituals. We also begin to see the harvesting rituals that show how the plants were approached as persons who must be respected and gifted in order to maintain kinship.
The Celts and their Druid priests (priest is here used to refer to all genders, as there were both male and female Druids) also had advanced concepts of disease, healing, protection, and magico-religious workings that were plant-focused.
In 43CE, the Romans invaded many parts of the Celtic lands. With their advanced military structures and weapons they were no match for the Celts, even though a noble fight was given. The Romans inhabited the British Isles from 43CE until 410CE which is why we see Roman Pagan temples in England. With most of their military now stationed on the Isles, Rome and surrounding territories were left vulnerable to attack, which happened many times. Eventually the Roman empire pulled away from the isles leaving them vulnerable. It’s worth noting here that Roman and Greek concepts of herbalism would have been brought in to these areas during their occupation and would have continued to be available to the people.
With the departure of the Romans, the British Isles were easy access to other people. From the 5th through the 6th centuries, tribes from Germany, The Netherlands, and Denmark made their way to the isles bringing their own herbal lore along with them. These tribes, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were Indo-Europeans, just like the surviving Celts, but they had gone a different route and had learned different plants, landforms, spirits, and practices. So, when they arrived, two separated streams of Indo-European groups were joined.
It is with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons that we begin to see the emergence of what we now consider a truly English style of Paganism, animism, and herbalism- and it is from the Anglo-Saxon Old English language that we get the sacred term Wortcunning. This is actually a compound word made from Wyrta, an herb or root, and Cunnan, to be wise, to know, to be initiated into the mysteries. So, Wortcunning is the deep knowledge of herbs. I often use a modernized translation of this ancient term: Herbwise.
Most of the extant Old English herbals we have, even though written in the 9th and 10th centuries respectively, are rooted in the herbal wisdom that concentrated in the British Isles during the times mentioned above. These texts include:
Bald’s Leechbook, written down in the 9th century
The Worcester MS, written down in the 10th century
The Herbarium of Apuleis, a Latin herbal brought to England and translated in the 9th century
The Old English Herbarium, written down in the 10th to 11th centuries
The Lacnunga, written down in the 10th century
Again, while these texts were scribed during the noted centuries, they were based on herbal wisdom that was hundreds and thousands of years older.
In 793CE, the Vikings, another Indo-European branch of people who had been living in Scandinavia, attacked England. With them came their own advanced concepts of disease and healing along with a materia medica of herbs that were not known in the isles.
The Vikings, being truly Indo-European, had many profound similarities with the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, but having lived in such unique lands as Scandinavia, they developed some equally unique characteristics to their language, culture, religion, and mythos.
We are lucky that from the Norse traditions we have existing texts that, while not specifically about herbs, preserve powerful plant lore that we rely on today. These texts include:
Eddas
Sagas
Havamal
Kylfingahǫfði
Icelandic Herbals
From the 12th to the 15th centuries as Christianity took hold of the previously Pagan and Animist British Isles, the monks had a monopoly on herbalism. Anyone who wasn’t associated with the church who was caught practicing wortcunning, herbalism, herbal charms, or anything of the sort could easily be persecuted. The monks considered their form of herbalism to be holy, while all others were of the old Pagan devils. Interestingly enough, the monks got their herbal wisdom from the Pagan folks of the lands; translating it into a Christian-friendly context. Where Wōden was invoked in a healing herbal charm, he was replaced by Christ. Where the Ylfe were petitioned in an herbal remedy, they were replaced by the Devil.
These monks also had access to Latin, Greek, and Arabic medical texts which gave them really full-spectrum views on herbal medicine and the healing arts.
You may have heard me say in some classes that someone can absolutely be a Christian Wortcunner, and this is why. Much of the written material we have from the Medieval ages has already been translated into a Christian cosmology and so is quite readily adapted to folks working in that religious tradition.
From the monks, we get the famously curated English gardens which were living, breathing medicine chests. Each plant chosen based on the medicinal applications and benefits they offered to the congregation and the ongoing research of the well-educated monks.
By the 16th and 17th centuries, folks started becoming interested in the old ways. It is during this time we see the academic revival of druidry, a renewed interest in Paganism and animism, and with it a curiosity about the plant practices of old. Nicholas Culpeper was one such inhabitant of this time who, while being quite happily Christian, was an herb nerd through and through. Thanks to him, many bits of herbal lore were preserved and written down in his Complete Herbal.
The renaissance era begins a resurgence in interest in herbal healing, plant medicine, and herb magic. The ways of the industrial revolution which began in the 18th century were intuitively very frightening for many people. Even back then, folks looked for more natural and earth-aligned ways of cultivating spiritual and physical wellness. Here in our own era we are not doing anything new!
So, the deep roots of Wortcunning are an amalgamation of the herbal wisdom of many people from many places, including:
The indigenous people of the British Isles and continental Europe
The Proto-Indo-Euopean settlers
The Celts
The Norse
The Medieval Monks and their libraries from afar
The Renaissance revivalists
You and me!
All of this leads to the wealth of herbal wisdom we now lovingly call wortcunning.
As we move forward into the future of these sacred green artes, rooted in the Pagan and Animist ways of our ancient herbwise ancestors, my hope is that we can always…
Protect all forms and traditions of herbalism, all elders, all lands, and all plants at all cost
Further the wisdom by adding our own magic to the melting cauldron we all drink from now
Make wortcunning practices relevant to where we practice
Honor all of these incredible herbwise wyrtwita ancestors who have gone before us and blessed us with their wisdom
Stay in deep kinship and reciprocity with the plants, our teachers
Check out this free community class covering all of the wild history above, and then some…
