Pennyroyal: Magical Properties & Uses

Pennyroyal's primary magical uses are protection during travel and the clearing of negative energy from the body and the practitioner's immediate space. It is particularly associated with protection against physical danger and with grounding a scattered or anxious mind. In workings of banishing it is used to clear the energetic debris left by difficult experiences. The dried herb can be carried in a sachet for travel; the scent itself has a clarifying, focusing quality. Given its pharmacological profile, it is a herb to be approached with knowledge and respect: it is powerful in both its magical and physical applications, and the two are not entirely separate.

Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) must be handled with extreme caution. The essential oil is highly toxic: pennyroyal oil has caused multiple deaths when taken internally as an abortifacient. Even small quantities of the oil can cause severe liver damage. The dried herb used externally in sachets or as a mild insect repellent poses far less risk, but even tea made from the dried herb should not be taken by anyone who is or may be pregnant. It should not be taken internally in any form without medical guidance. The dried herb has some valid uses as an insect repellent and mild carminative, but must never be used as the essential oil internally.

Demeter

Lurk-in-the-Ditch, the small mint that smells of strength: pennyroyal has one of the most significant safety profiles of any herb in the apothecary, and any honest account of it must begin there. It was used historically throughout Europe as an emmenagogue and abortifacient; its use for this purpose is documented from ancient Rome through the 19th century: the Roman poet Lucretius mentions it; Culpeper notes it explicitly. In British folk magic it was used as a travel-protection herb and as a protection against fleas (Pliny recorded this application; it is pharmacologically valid). The tension between its use as a protective herb and its use as an abortifacient defines its entire magical history.