If Music is the Food of Love!

''If music is the food of love …..'', so goes the Shakespeare quote but in Shakespeare’s time and before music wasn’t the food of love, quirky love potions were! Without a love potion Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream wouldn’t be possible! 

If you've read my blog before you'll know that I'm interested in the historical background of the witch hunts in Scotland and Germany and once you start researching, magic and love potions start popping up all over! Love magic is as old as time and even Saints like St Brigit weren't averse to dabbling in it (Brigit helped a desperate husband whose wife didn’t want anything to do with him, by use of holy water and powerful words, so the legend goes). Priests in the 11th Century had written instructions to question parishioners about their use of love magic and as funny as it may seem, during the witch hunts a bit of a dabble could easily end on a fire at the stake. 

So, you think it’s all a bit of hocus pocus, we've all moved on since then …… google love potions and you'll find a plethora of people willing to mix you one to bring back a lost lover, rekindle an old romance and to help Cupid's arrow to strike! 

In Medieval manuscripts love potion recipes, love amulets and rituals are frequently to be found and so this sketchbook page is all about love magic. Here’s just a wee sample, the first recipe is to cook leeks, earthworms and periwinkle (here is the first problem, periwinkle is both a plant and a mollusc, so maybe we should use both!) and later enjoy this concoction with the object of your affection. Hmmm, so far not too disgusting but believe me it gets worse! 

Cunning folk (semi-professional or professional practitioners of folk healing and magic), white witches or desperate would be lovers all seemed to agree that bodily fluids (urine, blood, spit and sweat) were helpful in achieving success on the love front, as were herbs and plants. Spanish Fly, was a well-known aphrodisiac then (as now) regardless of it being poisonous, causing inflammation and internal bleeding….. as the saying goes no risk, no fun! 

This being just the start of our Medieval Love magic page, I look forward to sketching some more fabulous love recipes, I'm sure you are desperate to know what ''love cakes'' are! So off to catch some earthworms, I've already bought the leeks, the periwinkle could be a little more of a problem though.