These prediction-based practices often appear at such times of the year (Midsummer’s Eve being another popular one), with their content being the same even if the time differs.Įlsewhere, in Oxfordshire, girls would load their pockets with ivy leaves before going for a walk. The same practice appears in Cornwall on Twelfth Night, and on New Year’s Eve in Hampshire (Inkwright 2020: 88). If anyone’s name had turned into a coffin shape, death was coming for them – and soon (Binney 2018: 133). The following morning, the family inspected the leaves. Family members wrote their name on an ivy leaf before dropping it into a bowl of water. Ivy appears in Halloween divinations in Herefordshire. Of course, people can and do use plants in all sorts of ways, and leaves are often an accessible way to bring plants into a practice. Other respondents noted that boiling ivy and keeping the juice made a wonderful cleanser for serge fabric (Vickery 2010). Over on, one respondent noted successfully tying ivy onto a corn, and being able to dig the corn out after removing the leaf (Vickery 2010).Īnother respondent remembered their mother making an ivy poultice for a suppurating wound, which worked (Vickery 2010). Meanwhile, soaking ivy leaves in vinegar turned them into a useful poultice to treat corns in Oxfordshire (Baker 2011 : 83).

People would make their children drink from ivy-wood bowls when they had whooping cough. Laying a trail of ivy leaves across a drunkard’s path was also supposed to sober him up (Baker 2011 : 83). Others believed wearing an ivy wreath on your head would ward off drunkenness (Inkwright 2020: 87). Engish ivy ( Hedera helix) with fruits near Starkenburg/Mosel, Germany by Robert Flogaus-Faust, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Unlucky Plants by Roy Vickery