Free Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, Ph.D. Wolf-Dieter Storl Page A

red color) and water, the alder has not fallen into complete obscurity. Pious mothers see the red wood as an indication that this was the tree that the Savior bled on for our sins. In contrast, farmers believe that the wood turns red when peeled because the devil beat his grandmother with an alder branch until she bled.
    In the wake of the Christian conversion of the European peoples, the image of the great alder goddess was distorted into that of a mean witch and the tree itself became a witches’ tree. In Thuringia the alder was called Walper tree (Walpurgis tree) because the witches ate the buds during their flight and used its branches to influence the weather. The people of the Allgäu region believed storms occurred when red-haired witches shook the alder bushes. But this superstition is a displaced memory of the abilities of the woman who found rebirth in the cauldron of the Goddess: Like all shamans, she had the power to influence the weather.
    A fairy tale from southern Tirol also contains a similar primordial memory. Deep in the forest a boy accidentally came across a witches’ gathering. He hid behind a bush and watched as the witches chopped up an elder companion and cooked her in a cauldron until the flesh fell from her bones. When they tried to put the bones together again they realized a rib was missing. Because they could not find the rib they replaced it with an alder branch and they brought the witch back to life again as a young and beautiful woman. But she warned her sisters that she would have to die if anyone accused her of being an alder-wood witch. The next day the boy met the witch by chance on the path. She tried to bewitch him and made seductive eyes at him. But he recognized her and called her an alder-wood witch. At that she fell dead on the ground.
    Folk medicine has found little use for the alder, probably because of its reputation as a witches’ tree. The Welsh physicians of Myddfai, heirs of the druids, prescribed an infusion of the leaves for dropsy and as a footbath for cold tired feet. To Saint Hildegard the tree was the symbol of uselessness. Nevertheless it was used to protect against witchcraft— similia similibus curantur (“like cures like”). The crushed leaves were strewn to protect against fleas, bugs, mice, and other bewitched or “alderlike” animals. The branches were quickly placed around the house on Walpurgis Night (April 30). The poor burned coal from the wood. Husbands carved wooden shoes out of it. The bark was used to tan leather black, and pigment was made from the cones. When mothers weaned their children they would place a wreath of alder leaves on their breasts and say that the witches had stolen their milk. Because the wood does not rot, the Neolithic people used it as stilts for their buildings. Venice was also built on alder posts.
     
    Rites of Initiation
    In the previous pages we have seen how divine beings break through the barrier of civilization and affect the destiny of humans at specific magical times during the year. But not only do the gods approach the humans; the humans approach the gods as well. They go into the wilderness, into the numinous magical world behind the hedgerow, in order to accumulate energy that can be found nowhere else. They go exhilarated, expectantly, but also full of respect and modesty.
    Above all, those who are loaded with magical energy—hunters, herb-gathering women, shamans, and fools—go into the woods. They decorate themselves with the feathers and furs of the wild animals they have encountered in their visions or those they have befriended. They scent their bodies with the smoke of aromatic herbs, color their faces white with chalk, red with ocher, and black with soot. They wear flower wreaths and green branches in their hair. In this way they come into harmony with the creatures of the forest, the spirits of the animals, and those of the plants. They not only bring medicinal and magical plants, mushrooms, antlers,