{"id":2540,"date":"2026-08-14T13:43:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/?p=2540"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:46:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:46:19","slug":"creative-and-curative-intentions-in-the-romanian-incantation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/creative-and-curative-intentions-in-the-romanian-incantation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Witch and the Magic Plant in Traditional Romanian Mentality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Oana Cristina Verdier<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The witch\u2013plant relationship has always represented a subject of interest in the Romanian\u2014and universal\u2014magical and religious imaginary. In folk tradition, the knowledgeable woman masters an archaic vegetal language through which she can heal, bind or unbind, influencing the balance between life and death. This relationship of coexistence has its origins in Prehistory, when the human relationship with the surrounding environment was one of direct interdependence, survival depending profoundly on the knowledge of nature\u2019s rhythms. In this context, the woman\u2014often responsible for gathering, cooking and caring for the sick\u2014became the keeper of an empirical knowledge of the vegetal world, which gradually acquired symbolic and ritual valences. In medieval Christian tradition, the figure of the woman who preserved archaic knowledge became demonized, the witch being thus depicted as a woman subject to the devil; by extension, herbs and nature itself became heresy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The archetype of the witch and magical thinking in the traditional community<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The image of the witch in the mentality of the Romanian village appears under the archetype of the initiated woman, healer and dangerous one, respected and feared, whose wisdom perpetuates the remedies and magical practices transmitted orally. In a world in which the magical worldview stands at the center of the Romanian peasant\u2019s universe, it becomes vital to existence, as Gh. Pavelescu states:
\u201cMagic and human activity become (\u2026) inseparable elements (\u2026).\u201d It is regarded as \u201can everyday weapon that accompanies man from birth to death, protecting him against misfortune, bad luck and demonic spirits. (\u2026) It refers to the most diverse human activities, but first and foremost it appears in connection with the means and procedures that serve to ensure vegetative existence: occupations and medicine.\u201d (Gh. Pavelescu, Research on Magic among Romanians from the Apuseni Mountains<\/em>, p. 44\/116)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magic thus represented a \u201ctechnique\u201d for supporting biological life, being necessary for rich harvests, healthy and fertile animals, vigorous infants, and a protected household:
\u201cThe practical orientation in the life of the Romanian peasant is closely tied to the magical worldview. (\u2026) Superstitions, beliefs, and magical customs are living elements that fit into an organized whole which we call the magical worldview, without which they cannot be understood and appreciated at their true value.\u201d (Op. Cit. Gh. Pavelescu, p. 10\u201311)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this whole landscape, the witch, the charmer or the healer-woman represented a mediator between humans and the mysteries of life here and beyond, plants functioning as means of communication between the two worlds. She acquires the language of herbs, an esoteric knowledge of the meaning of the world inscribed in leaves, flowers, and roots, as Anamaria R\u0103chi\u0219an notes:
\u201c(Re)discovering the universe of plants, we find that the vegetal kingdom possesses a language accessible to initiates. In folk belief, the uninitiated can decipher the language of plants only if, for example, they feed on white snake meat (Butur\u0103 1992: 220).\u201d
Delia-Anamaria R\u0103chi\u0219an, \u201cHealing Plants between the Sacred and the Profane,\u201d Proceedings of ICONN 4, 2017, p. 990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loredana Jumara recounts in this regard:
\u201cOne of the common people\u2019s explanations for the vast knowledge of witches was that the plants themselves are those that tell witches to pick them and what they are good for.\u201d
(Loredana Jumara, Magic and Witchcraft<\/em>, p. 58)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We thus observe an animistic perspective of the world, in which plants have an unknown substratum\u2014an energy which, through the uttering of the ritual word (incantation), animates vegetal matter and activates its healing power, both in the physical plane and in subtler ones. In this sense, Irina Nemeti notes:
\u201cPopular religion organically unites the biological, cosmic and astral worlds. Upon plants was exercised a transfer of human and religious identity, they being anthropomorphized and sacralized. Plants have their own active, well-defined place in a complex system that includes divine and mythical characters, whose names they sometimes bear.\u201d (Irina Nemeti, \u201cThe Spatial Regime of Magic Herbs in Romanian Folk Beliefs,\u201d p. 197)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Aurel Candrea notes the fundamental idea of Romanian magical medicine: the activating power of the word:
\u201cIn our villages, old women know many herbal remedies. They know when the herb must be picked and what word must be spoken over it. The remedy does not work without the word; the incantation gives it life, for without the word the herb is dead.\u201d
(A. Candrea, Romanian Medical Folklore Compared<\/em>, Bucharest, 1944, p. 71)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to knowing specific formulas, the witch correlated the magical act with sacred time. She possessed an understanding of cosmic rhythms, knowing that plants cannot be harvested at any time, but only at propitious moments when their \u201cforces\u201d are alive and receptive. Writing about the well-known witch Nancsi, Bil\u021biu notes:
\u201cLike other witches, she performed magical practices in correlation with magical time. She preferred midnight, the optimal magical time, after the roosters\u2019 crow, when malevolent spirits can no longer act, then at sunset and at sunrise. The days she considered optimal for performing these spells were Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, the \u2018sweet\u2019 days. Being superstitious, Nancsi preferred Thursday, because she believed Tuesday had three bad hours.\u201d
(Bil\u021biu, \u201cThe Witch Nancsi and Her Magical Heritage,\u201d p. 30)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus we see that propitious time, the incantation (the power of the word), and the plant form a unitary system, and that only by respecting these conditions can the magical and therapeutic power of the plant be activated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Healing plants and magical plants<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the beliefs of the traditional village, plants have a dual nature\u2014they have both healing and magical functions. Anamaria R\u0103chi\u0219an asserts:
\u201cEvery plant is dual. We discern, as previously mentioned, a dialectic of harmonized opposites: sacred\u2013profane; good\u2013evil; medicine\u2013poison; benign\u2013malign. Through a process of anthropomorphization or \u2018passage\u2019 into legends, plants may undergo metamorphoses, through which they either become sacralized or suffer desacralization.\u201d
(Delia-Anamaria R\u0103chi\u0219an, \u201cHealing Plants between the Sacred and the Profane,\u201d p. 1001)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the keepers of this secret knowledge were the initiated women, ordinary women also used herbs, both as remedies and in small magical practices. We may therefore state that plants lie at the foundation of feminine magic, forming a natural and organic symbiosis with life and with the liminal moments of existence: harvest, wedding, birth, illness, death. This relationship between woman and vegetal universe materializes concretely in numerous daily practices, where plants fulfill both therapeutic and magical roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such example is Basil (Ocimum basilicum<\/em>), holy, \u201cGod\u2019s own,\u201d a common healing plant also found in protection or fate-determining rituals. Thus, basil placed on embers was used for fumigations against colds and headaches, but also for driving away animal plague from the household:
\u201cBasil from the priest\u2019s cross is put in the water that the chickens drink. The herb called bear\u2019s grass is chopped, then mixed with bran, which is given to the cattle in food.\u201d
(Bujorean, \u201cIllnesses, Remedies and Healing Plants Known by the Romanian Peasantry,\u201d p. 330)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the opposite pole from Basil stands Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum<\/em>), \u201cthe devil\u2019s herb,\u201d \u201cthe witch\u2019s flower,\u201d \u201cthe love herb,\u201d associated with dangerous charms and potions, yet surprisingly also used \u201cfor any illness that finds no remedy,\u201d for it seems to reach the depths of the sick person\u2019s being, offering deliverance\u2014one way or another:
\u201cMandrake is given, after which the sick person first goes mad, and when he comes back to his senses, he wakes up healthy. If not even mandrake can defeat it, the sick one dies and is freed from toil.\u201d
(Bujorean, Illnesses, Remedies and Healing Plants Known by the Romanian Peasantry<\/em>, p. 48)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The witch is perceived as a mediator between the \u201cgood\u201d intra muros spaces of the village and the \u201cevil\u201d extra muros spaces (the forest, the boundary, the night, the water). Plants originating from such extra muros spaces (mandrake, henbane, devil\u2019s thistle) are sites of ritual gathering. This idea of the potency of liminal space is emphasized by Loredana Jumara, who states that the boundary becomes a privileged place for magical actions, where both the plant and the witch become agents of ritual practice:
\u201cThe boundary is also a point of passage between the known world of the village (symbolically, this world) and the external, unknown world (symbolically, the other world); for this reason, numerous incantations, as well as spells and charms, are performed here.\u201d (Loredana Jumara, \u201cMagia \u0219i vr\u0103jitoria,\u201d p. 58)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liminal spaces thus appeared both intra muros and extra muros. Bil\u021biu provides as an example the places where the old woman Nancsi carried out her activity: \u201cThe places where the witch performed magical practices are those widely attested in Romanian magic: at the boundary line, in the cemetery, at crossroads, at the hearth oven, at the mouth of the stove, at flowing waters, sometimes where the water turns backward (whirlpools or eddies), in the attic of the house.\u201d (Bil\u021biu, \u201cVr\u0103jitoarea Nancsi \u0219i patrimoniul ei magic,\u201d p. 30)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the same reasons, some rituals were performed on the doorstep, at the threshold of the house. The witch thus became a bridge of passage between the sacred and the profane, where \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cevil\u201d plants were not only remedies but also partners in a dialogue with the unseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christian Imaginary and the Demonization of Botanical Knowledge<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In her work Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation<\/em>, Silvia Federici emphasizes that the persecution of witches was, beyond a religious campaign, also a political process of censoring the female body and knowledge:
\u201cWitch-hunting was a deliberate strategy used by authorities to instill terror, destroy collective resistance, silence entire communities, and turn their members against one another. (\u2026) It was also a strategy of censorship and control, which, depending on the context, could mean censoring land, bodies, or social relations.\u201d (Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation<\/em>, p. 220)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the woman who mastered the secrets of herbs and childbirth shifted from the status of healing witch to that of heretical witch. Ioan and \u0218tefana Pop-Cur\u0219eu point in the same direction. They show that in post-Byzantine church painting, the image of the witch appears consistently in the infernal register of the Last Judgment, where plant knowledge is visually represented through symbols that take on negative\u2014witch-like\u2014connotations: weeds, cups, pots, cauldrons, ointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women who drank herbs to avoid having children are therefore condemned iconographically:
\u201cSummarizing all these descriptions of the torments reserved for the sin of witchcraft, a few extremely significant traits emerge. Most often, those guilty of it are women\u2014either those who sought to get rid of unwanted children, or prostitutes, but also priestesses or nuns. Men are not absent, yet they are mentioned far more rarely (Ungureni 1857). The range of activities attributed to them also seems very broad: taking away the manna and \u2018virtue,\u2019 abortion through poisoning with herbs or through magical means, incantations, intercourse with devils, etc. The punishments are generally very painful and harsh, and we are even told\u2014in two manuscripts\u2014that those guilty of this sin are the only beings judged already at the particular judgment and will not even rise from the dead at the Last Judgment.\u201d (Pop-Cur\u0219eu & Pop-Cur\u0219eu, Iconografia vr\u0103jitoriei<\/em>, p. 52)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cup of remedies, of herbs, of brews or potions\u201d (Pop-Cur\u0219eu & Pop-Cur\u0219eu, Op. Cit., p. 317) is invested with demonic attributes. These no longer heal but condemn the souls seeking comfort outside the Church; we observe that the same material is now placed under the sign of sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was once a healing practice becomes, in religious understanding, a sign of impurity. Plants are demonized, and the woman who uses them is condemned to the hell depicted on the walls. Thus, plants come to be \u201cdevilish,\u201d and uncontrolled feminine nature is perceived as frightening and blameworthy. The alliance between woman and plant is an almost inexhaustible subject, bringing together the most diverse theories and reaching the most complex dimensions. One thing, however, is certain: this relationship manifests, above all, in the most subtle and delicate realms of the sacred feminine, being one that does not admit separation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

George Bujorean, Boli, leacuri \u0219i plante de leac cunoscute de \u021b\u0103ranimea rom\u00e2n\u0103, Popular Library of the \u201cAstra\u201d Association, Dacia Traian\u0103 Printing House, Sibiu, 1930.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pamfil Bil\u021biu, \u201cVr\u0103jitoarea Nancsi \u0219i patrimoniul ei magic,\u201d Memoria Ethnologica, no. 64\u201365, July\u2013December 2017, Baia Mare.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delia-Anamaria R\u0103chi\u0219an, Plante de leac \u00eentre sacru \u0219i profan, in Proceedings of ICONN 4, Mega Publishing, Cluj-Napoca, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antoaneta Olteanu, \u0218coala de solomonie. Magie, vr\u0103jitorie \u0219i alte manifest\u0103ri demonice \u00een cultura rom\u00e2neasc\u0103, Paideia, Bucharest, 2003.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurel Candrea, Folclorul medical rom\u00e2n comparat, Romanian Academy Publishing, Bucharest, 1944.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mircea Eliade, Ocultism, vr\u0103jitorie \u0219i mode culturale. Eseuri de religie comparat\u0103, trans. Elena Bort\u0103, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrei Oi\u0219teanu, Ordine \u0219i haos. Mit \u0219i magie \u00een cultura tradi\u021bional\u0103 rom\u00e2neasc\u0103, Polirom, Ia\u0219i, 2004.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ioan Pop-Cur\u0219eu, Magie \u0219i vr\u0103jitorie \u00een cultura rom\u00e2n\u0103. Istorie, literatur\u0103, mentalit\u0103\u021bi, Polirom \u2013 Cartea Rom\u00e2neasc\u0103, Ia\u0219i, 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, Autonomedia, New York, 2004.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gh. Pavelescu, Cercet\u0103ri asupra magiei la rom\u00e2nii din Mun\u021bii Apuseni, Romanian Social Institute \u2013 Institute for Social Research of Romania, Bucharest, 1944.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ioan Pop-Cur\u0219eu, \u0218tefana Pop-Cur\u0219eu, Iconografia vr\u0103jitoriei \u00een arta religioas\u0103 rom\u00e2neasc\u0103. Eseu de antropologie vizual\u0103, \u0218coala Ardelean\u0103 & Eikon, Cluj-Napoca, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loredana (Elena) Jumar\u0103, Magia \u0219i vr\u0103jitoria \u00een imaginarul \u021b\u0103r\u0103nesc rom\u00e2nesc, PhD thesis, \u201cBabe\u0219-Bolyai\u201d University, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Cluj-Napoca, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irina Nemeti, \u201cRegimul spa\u021bial al plantelor magice rom\u00e2ne\u0219ti,\u201d in Religie. Biseric\u0103. Rituri. Rituri \u0219i ritualuri, National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest, 1997.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Oana Cristina Verdier The witch\u2013plant relationship has always represented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antropoflora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}