A curious survival of the age of superstition and romance attaches to the red resin known as dragon’s blood, and is still largely practised by a certain class of uneducated women in many parts of the country. The resin is the product of the Pterocarpus Indicus growing in the East Indies, and now chiefly used as a colouring agent in varnishes and stains, etc. It was formerly employed in medicine for its astringent properties, but has now entirely gone out of use for that purpose.[4]
The secret of its use as a charm is shrouded in some mystery, and those who use it are very reticent in giving particulars; but it has been gathered, that several charms of a romantic nature are worked with this otherwise very commonplace article of commerce. The most common of these seems to be practised by young girls who are jealous of their lovers and seek to win back their affection. A small quantity of dragon’s blood is procured, wrapped in paper, and thrown on the fire whilst the following couplet or incantation is repeated:—
“May he no pleasure or profit see,
Till he comes back again to me”.
Another method much believed in by women of a certain class, and used by them to attract the opposite sex, is to mix dragon’s blood, quicksilver, saltpetre, and sulphur, and throw them on the fire, repeating a similar incantation.
A chemist in the north of England, giving his experience on the sale of dragon’s blood, says: “I have had great difficulty in finding out for what purpose it was used. It was not for medicine, but for a kind of witchcraft. The women burn it upon a bright fire, while wishing for their affection to be returned by some one of the opposite sex; also those who have quarrelled with their husbands and desire to be friends again; girls who have fallen out with their young men, and want to win them back; as well as young women wanting sweethearts. A working man recently came to me for a small quantity, and I inquired for what purpose it was required. He was very reluctant to mention anything about it, but at length said, a man had made him lose three sovereigns, and he wished, as he had been swindled out of the money, to have his revenge, and make him suffer for it. He was going to turn the dragon’s blood on a clear fire, and he believed that the ill wishes of the person thus burning it would have a dire effect on the individual thought of.”
Another charm said to be worked with this drug, in which an inverted teacup plays a prominent part, has reference to the sex of expected offspring.
Altogether, considerable romantic properties seem to be associated with this resin, but there seems to be no authentic record of the same, the only probable explanation being, that it was used and sold, like other innocent articles, by those who were supposed to have dealings in the black art, for working charms, which have thus been handed down from mediæval times. Coles states: “The early Greeks called dragon’s blood Cinnabaris, not knowing whether it was of vegetable or mineral origin; and that Pliny, Solinus, and Monardus have set it down for truth that it was the blood of a dragon or serpent, crushed to death by the weight of the dying elephant falling upon him; but he thinks it was certainly so called from the bloody colour that it is of, being nothing else but a mere gum”. It was used medicinally as an emmenagogue, and in the arts 300 years ago by goldsmiths and painters in glass, by the former as a base for enamel to set a foil under precious stones to give them greater lustre, and the latter by fire, to strike a crimson colour into glass for stained windows.
That a belief in charms and witchcraft is still fostered by ignorant people in some parts of the country, is manifest from cases reported in the newspapers from time to time. Two practitioners of the occult sciences were haled before the magistrates but recently. One, an old crone, who confessed to using dragon’s blood in working her love charms, was rewarded with seven days with hard labour.
The other, which came to light in Cornwall, was a middle-aged individual who practised as a wizard. His treatment consisted of writing an amulet to be worn near the body. Money was then required to remove the spell from the bewitched patient to some one else. To this victim was to be lent neither “cock, pin, or pan,” and by the aid of the planets the patient would be cured. But these are hard times truly for the wizard and magician, and this professor was rewarded with seven months’ incarceration in one of her Majesty’s gaols.
Singular superstitious properties are attributed to certain plants. The walnut was formerly employed in medicine as an application to wounds and an antidote to poisons; and the following old riddle, says William Coles in 1657, “almost every one knows”:—