The Lacnunga (from læc, healing; the title can be translated as “Remedies”) is an Anglo-Saxon document that was written around 1000 AD. The document is housed in the British Museum.
The Lacnunga contains more than 200 treatments using medicinal plants and other materials including prayers. One of the best known of these is the “Nine Herbs Prayer.”
Medical practitioners of the time knew that effective health care required meeting the patient’s physical, psychological and emotional needs.
The herbs mentioned in the charm are nine sacred herbs which were thought to have been given to humans by Woden, the God of healing and were made into a sterile (boiled) salve to treat geblæd, an infection or inflammation of the skin.
The nine sacred herbs are:
- Mugwort (Artemisisa vulgaris)
- Plantain (Plantago major)
- Lamb’s cress (Nasturtium officinalis)
- Betony (Stachys betonica)
- Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis)
- Stinging nettle (Utricia dioca)
- Crab apple (Pyrus malus)
- Chervil (Anthriscus)
- Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)