Are Magic Potions Real?

Magic potions have been part of our folklore for hundreds if not thousands of years. We hear about them in stories of witches and their bubbling cauldrons -- but are magic potions real?

What are magic potions?

The history of potions goes back to ancient times. Humans were making plant remedies for as long as humanity existed. In the medieval age, potions were recorded down in detail and for the first time in history, we are able to know what our ancestors thought about plants and their magical healing abilities. 

The first magic potions were concoctions made from herbs and plants to cure the sick. Herbal medicine was freely available to all people and every village had at least one communal herbal garden.

Who made magic potions?

Since potions were initially made in the early middle ages to heal, there were a couple of different people that made magic potions.

Wise women or “witches” as they later became known, made healing potions for everyday people that could often not afford to see a medieval doctor. Wise women turned to a life of medicinal potion-making because they were generally outcast from society, unable to do manual labour like working the fields. They also had extensive knowledge of plants and their medical benefits.

Monks also dispensed herbal cures to those that could not afford to see a doctor. Medieval monasteries were self-containing and so they had their own infirmity and herbal garden. Most of our knowledge of medieval cures comes from monasteries who recorded and documented their medicinal uses. Hildegarde von Bingen was one nun who defied convention and actually wrote her own book on herbal knowledge and medicine.

What made potions magic?

If magic potions just a mixture of herbs, then what makes them magic? Real potions did have a magical element to them. Medieval herbalists would chant over their herbal potions before giving them to the patient. This was seen to activate the healing properties and even bring in a healing spirit, like God, the Holy Spirit, or Christ to assist. This is where the overlap between potions and spells begins. The magic essence in potions was thought to be the words uttered over them, as well as the magical qualities of the life within the plant itself.

In the earlier period or in more rural areas, wise women may have chanted something akin to a pagan chant or spell. We know herbal medicine dates back to these earlier times, so a lot of the old spells were brought forward into the medieval world.

In Monasteries, the old spells were Christianised into new chants called ‘blessings’. They carried the same meaning but replaced the symbolism with Christian meaning. For example, monks would make the sign of the cross over a herbal potion and invoke the names of various angels. By the 13th century, priests were being asked to stop any sort of spell invoking with their herbal remedies by the church, meaning it began to conflict pretty heavily with the doctrine of the medieval church.

How to make a real magic potion

Medieval texts describe magic potion recipes in detail. Just by reading the recipe, you can imagine an apothecary with magic potion bottles stacked on the shelves. Some ingredients are strange, like dragon’s blood or a unicorn horn. While some are ordinary and still used today to treat diseases, like wormwood or liquorice root. 

To make magic potions, an understanding of the elements of the body is needed. Medieval physicians believed that the body was a balance of the four humours, which corresponded to the four emotional states and the four elements. Health and vitality was achieved by balancing these four states, whereas disease was caused by an imbalance in these humours. 

Here are some real medieval potions taken from various texts. The way recipes were written back then makes it sound like a magic potion poem. 

For dog bites — Take a handful of Box, and stamp it, and strain it with a draught of milk, put into it a pretty quantity of Lobsters shell beaten to a powder, and some Unicorns horn, if you can get it, and drink thereof and wash the wound therewith.

For stomach upsets — Take root of liquorice, a few leaves of sage, branches of the willow, rose petals, fennel seed, a stick of cinnamon, ginger root, cloves, blood of a cormorant, three kinds of pepper, mandrake & dragon’s blood. Infuse over the fire and drink.

For burns — Take a live snail and rub its slime against the burn and it will heal.

For migraines — Take half a dish of barley, one handful each of betony, vervain and other herbs that are good for the head; and when they be well boiled together, take them up and wrap them in a cloth and lay them to the sick head and it shall be whole.

For depression — Squeeze the juice of the first buds of lilies. The odour of the flowers makes a person’s heart joyful and furnishes him with virtuous ideas.

For heaviness in the mind and body — Take fern when it is green and cook it in water. Bathe in this water and place the green fern on the eyes while you sleep. This will purify the body and mind, taking away fogginess.

Read more about herbalism