Try a combination tea of Blessed Thistle, peppermint, elder flower and ginger for cold, fever and backache. (from Ellen Everett Hopman's A Druid's Herbal)
The common dosage is 2 ml three times per day of blessed thistle tincture. Approximately 2 grams of the dried herb can also be added to 250 ml (1 cup) of boiling water and steeped ten to fifteen minutes to make a tea. Three cups can be drunk each day, about ½ hour before meals to improve digestion. Note: Herbs are not a 'one dose fits all' medication. Always check with your Doctor or Homeopathic practitioner before use.
M. Grieve also suggests four different ways of using Blessed Thistle in A Modern Herbal: "It may be eaten in the green leaf, with bread and butter for breakfast, like Watercress; the dried leaves may be made into a powder and a drachm taken in wine or otherwise every day; a wineglassful of the juice may be taken every day, or, which is the usual and the best method, an infusion may be made of the dried herb, taken any time as a preventive, or when intended to remove disease, at bed time, as it causes copious perspiration." Many homeopathic practitioners still recommend the same methods today!
The seeds of the Milk Thistle (Carduus Marianus), known also as Silybum Marianum, have similar properties and uses; and the Cotton Thistle, Melancholy Thistle may also be used for like purposes.
GARDENING WITH BLESSED THISTLE The Blessed Thistle can grow up to 2 feet tall on reddish stems and may require staking when in bloom. The flowers are pale yellow, set amidst a prickly green head atop equally prickly long leaves - it is a thistle! It grows in ordinary soil and will survive almost any soil condition with the only effect being slightly more compacted plants in tougher soils.
Harvesting Harvest the leaves and flowering tops just at flowering. Do not harvest on wet days or when dew is still noticeable on the plant.
MAGICAL USE
GENDER: Masculine
PLANET: Mars
ELEMENT: Fire
ASTROLOGICAL: Aries
DEITIES: Thor, Minerva, Pan, fertility deities
TAROT: The Emperor, Page of any suit
Cunningham says in The Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs that "Wizards in England used to select the tallest thistle in the patch to use as a magical wand or walking stick". While they don't generally get high enough to use as a staff, the stalks of Blessed Thistle are indeed excellent for making wands.
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