Regarding Rue

COMMON/FOLKLORE NAMES: Herb of Grace, Garden Rue, German Rue, Herbygrass, Hreow, Mother of the Herbs, Ruta, Bashoush, Rewe

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: Rue is a *very* powerful herb. In large quantities Rue can be toxic; an overdose will lead to vomiting. Do not take Rue immediately after eating. *NEVER* use Rue if you are pregnant or suspect pregnancy. *ALWAYS* wear gloves when picking the fresh growth as skin irritation or light rash may occur.

PARTS USED: Most modern herbals suggest using only the aerial (above ground) parts of the plant. The majority of the volatile properties are found in the tops of the younger shoots, and are best harvested just before flowering.

Infusions and decoctions are usually made from the fresh plant. Dried Rue has a similar taste and smell, but is less powerful.

HISTORICAL REFERENCES: We find that Rue, like so many herbs, offers a history where its medicinal and magical uses are so closely intertwined that we find our best guidance for today in the tales of yesterday. A Modern Herbal offers some fascinating history behind this herb, and I encourage you to follow that link at your leisure. Just a few from this and other sources are listed here:

- Hippocrates specially commended it (for fending off illness and disease), and it constituted a chief ingredient of the famous antidote to poison used by Mithridates. The Greeks regarded it as an antimagical(sic) herb, because it served to remedy the nervous indigestion they suffered when eating before strangers, which they attributed to witchcraft.

- Rue as once grown around temples to Mars in Rome, and some sources state Romans ate Rue as protection against the evil eye.

- Piperno, a Neapolitan physician, in 1625, commended Rue as a specific against epilepsy and vertigo, and for the former malady, at one time, some of this herb used to be suspended round the neck of the sufferer.

- Pliny...reported Rue to be of such effect for the preservation of sight that the painters of his time used to devour a great quantity of it, and the herb is still eaten by the Italians in their salads. It was supposed to make the sight both sharp and clear, especially when the vision had become dim through over-exertion of the eyes.

- It was with 'Euphrasy and Rue' that Adam's sight was purged by Milton's Angel.

- At one time the holy water was sprinkled from brushes made of Rue at the ceremony preceding the Sunday celebration of High Mass, for which reason it is supposed it was named the Herb of Repentance and the Herb of Grace.

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