TheNine Herbs Charm,Nigon Wyrta Galdor,Lay of the Nine Healing Herbs, orNine Wort Spell (among other names) is anOld English charm recorded in the tenth century AD.[1] It is part of the Anglo-Saxon medical compilation known asLacnunga, which survives in the manuscript Harley MS 585 in theBritish Library.[2] The charm involves the preparation of nine plants.
The poem contains one of two clear mentions of the godWoden in Old English poetry; the other isMaxims I of theExeter Book.Robert K. Gordon's translation of the section reads as follows:
A snake came crawling, it bit a man.
Then Woden took nine glory-twigs,
Smote the serpent so that it flew into nine parts.
There apple brought this pass against poison,
That she nevermore would enter her house.[1]
Nine and three,numbers significant in Germanic paganism and laterGermanic folklore, are mentioned frequently throughout the charm.[2]
Scholars have proposed that this passage describes Woden coming to the assistance of the herbs through his use of nine twigs, each twig inscribed with therunic first-letter initial of a plant.[3]
According to Gordon, the poem is "clearly an old heathen thing which has been subjected to Christian censorship."[1] Malcolm Laurence Cameron states that chanting the poem aloud results in a "marvellously incantatory effect".[4]
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