German Village Superstitions

About artemisia, the Polish bielica or bylica as a “divine” herb we wrote here some time ago. But here is an interesting factoid: a similar practice of using the same (?) herb was found deep in Germany, as already pointed out by Grimm:

“et extra villam, ubi herbam iusquiamum inveniunt, quae Teutonice belisa vocatur…”

Grimm’s observation in his volume III of Deutsche Mythologie) comes from the Collection of Decrees by Buchard of Worms (died 1024 or 1025) (Decretorum libri viginti).

Now, according to Grimm, the German belisa is supposedly not artemisia but henbane which is in Slavic is bielum (Polish) or belena (Russian).

This is an interpretation of Grimm’s.  The addition of hyoscyamum is his own and does not appear in the original text.

This much we can see comparing to the Migne edition:

Henbane’s name supposedly comes from *bhelena – an “Indo-European” reconstructed word.  Henbane has a whitish look and biel means “white” in Slavic so there is a separate question about that IE word.

But…  bylica does not appear to be derived from any “whitish” word and artemisia is not itself white.  And Grimm is right that his belisa sounds more like that bylica than bielum or belena by reason of the final “ts” sound expressed with an “s” as in “-sa” in German and with a a “c” as in “-ca” in Polish.

Perhaps a reading of the rest of this would skew this one way or another? (Going with artemisia)

Otherwise, we have a problem with what Teutonice means in this case (whether Buchard knew it or not).

For another instance of strangely Slavic sounding names in German pagan rituals see here.

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July 19, 2017

2 thoughts on “German Village Superstitions

  1. Marek

    Artemisia is Artemide/moon, therefore bylica is probably moon as a wife or sister of belebog/belenos/baldr/apollo (sun). from what i heard bylica is burned on kupała day which is beginning of cancer/ruled by moon.
    Could “teutonice” call wife of badr belisa? I don’t know, teutonice also can theoretically mean any worshipper of teu(double) god like tuisco/hermes/odin.

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  2. Savalas

    Bylica means field wood, is a plant growing on unused fields. I read it is wermuth, wormwood, a drug containing plant. Since it was used to cure from worms, by women to initiate birth and is believed to be used as hallucinogen, its role in the myths is plausible.

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