Plant Research Term Project, Part 3: Superstitions, Folklore and Myths

09/17/2017

Chosen Herb: Basil

Word Count: 1691

Basil is considering as the most useful and common herbs in the world, and since it is an easy growing herbs, it is widely planted in many countries like China, India, Italy, Malaysia,Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and so on. Although the “basil” comes from a Greek word βασιλικόν φυτόν, which means royal plant, it was first found and recorded in India in about five thousands years ago. Basil plays a significant role in the Italian cuisine, most of the Italian food contains basil since it is a prominently featured in Italian food. Not only the Italian Cuisine, but also many Asian food contains basil in it. Such as Vietnamese food, Chinese food, and thailand food. In addition, not only in the field of cooking that basil is contributing a huge effort, but also basil helps people a lot in treatment as a herb. Such as curing headache, sprain, and so on. Basil is not only a plant or a herb, but it is also a friend of human because it makes a huge sacrifice in cooking and treating for people. However, since basil is existing in the human history for a long time( as I mentioned it was first found in India about 5000 years ago), it is many folklore, myths, and superstition about how the basil is doing in people’s life.

As we all know, basil takes a significant role in Italian cuisine since most of the Italian food contains basil as ingredient. Basil is not only a general cooking herb, but also it is a symbol of love. The movie “The Decameron”, which also known as “Prince Galehaut”, is a novellas collection by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. It is considered as a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose and one of the most famous literature. This book has a frame story including 100 tales told by a group of 7 young women and 3 young men avoiding in a secluded villa just out of Florence to escepe the Black Death. In the book, one of the most famous scene is that the character Giovanni Boccaccio made it to symbolize the tragic love in between the relationship of Lorenzo and Lisabettain The Decameron. The Roman Catholic Church, priests, and religious belief became the satirical source of comedy throughout. It was part of a wider historical trend in the aftermath of the Black Death. Basil ,as being a symbol of love in Italy, is considered a romantic symbol in the period.In Sicilian folklore, basil associates with both love and death. It represents love in one side, which means people could fall in love with each other. However, on the other side, it also associates with death. This is two opposite side of the symbol. In deep, what does it mean is that people could fall in love with symbol, but also could died for their lover, which means they are willing to make sacrifice for each other. In addition, in Moldavian folklore , if a young man accepts basil from a young woman , then they will fall in love with each other. In addition, the European used basil as detector of love. A husband could ask his wife to hold a spring of basil in her hand and it could detect whether his wife is royal and faithful or not. If the basil in her hand was shriveled, then it could tell that she is unfaithful. Another, tradition belief of basil is that when a person smell a spring of basil, then he or she would attract a new lover. So I suggest that if you are still single, do not worry and go ahead and buy a ton of basil to smell everyday and you will find a new lover soon. Another popular folklore that suggested if a young maiden wanted to have a lover, she had to grow some basil and in a years times a new suitor would show up.

In Europe, it is often conflicted on the subject of basil. Basil produces a merry and cheerful heart while Culpeper’s links it to poison through the observation of its effects in drawing venom out of wounds and the proclamation that “like draws to like.” European saying that basil can produce scorpions, possibly even inside someone’s skull. This is a superstition of basil. Technically it is not true in a obvious way, but people tend to believe it as too good to be true. Perhaps it is just a lie to scare in the past, and as time goes by, people keep transferring this message over time and it became more and more reliable. This is how superstition were told by people. This scorpion connection frequently were told with the Greek story of the basilisk, which in turn is linked to basilicum. In addition, in some European folklore, basil is often used to prevent both the look and bite of serpents. Perhaps basil has some magical ingredient that could prevent serpents. Again, this might not be true because no one knows or has the evidence to prove this, but what is more important is that in people’s mind, it gives people a psychological effect meaning when they were bitten by a serpent, the basil gives them a confidence that the basil is going to help them to treat the bite.

Besides the folklore of basil in the Europe, there are also numerous folklore in the Asian countries. For example, basil has an important religious significance in India. As I mentioned before, India was the first country who found and recorded basil in the literature. Holy basil, which also known as Tulsi in India, is considered as a sacred plant with Tulasi and Vishnu. This is another tangled love story with couple variation. Purification, protection, eternal life, and love are considered the Hindu tradition associates holy basil since it is usually used in burial rituals. This is a very famous love story in India and many people know it. Indians often kept Holy Basil in their home for protection against evil, and they believe in basil has a healing properties. In addition, basil also associated with the story of voodoo love goddess Erzuli. Erzuli is is the Haitian African spirit of love, luxury, jewelry, dancing,beauty, and flowers. It is recorded that divination and ensuring faithfulness were used in love spells. Many European like to put a spring basil into their pocket in order to bring them wealth and safety sprinkling it on the ground to avert evil and setting it near door and cash register to attract customer. This is considered as a superstition of basil. The reason is that it obviously has no scientific evidence to support that to put a spring of basil into people’s pocket could bring the wealth. However, although it is not true technically, we do have to respect this tradition because this is what people’s belief and this is the culture of their nation. In Greece, basil were believed representing the power to aid in divination, once was used as a means to detect witches. When basil was being burned, one of the most famous methods used by the ancient Greeks was to simply name out suspected witches. When it makes a sound like calling a name, it tells people who was practicing witchcraft. The ancient Hebrews took Basil for strength and courage when the middle eastern people took it as an herb of mourning. In the Christian tradition, basil has a rumors ,which is said to have grown at the site of Christ’s crucifixion. In St. Basil feast day celebrations in Greece, basil is also a part of the celebrations.

In the traditional Chinese culture, the words basil means a nine floors tower in Chinese. One story describes how this name came from is “nine” means many since it has many leaves and the structure of the basil looks like a tower. There is another more interested story about how “nine floors tower” came from. In the ancient Chinese period, a emperor was visiting a place. Suddenly, there was a huge flood coming to the place where the emperor visiting. Then, the emperor was forced to shelter into a nine floor tower in order to avoid the flood. However, the emperor and his fellas were lack of food in that tower, and the only thing that they found in that tower is basil. So, the emperor and his fellas ate basil and survived at the end. This is how name of nine floor tower came from in the traditional Chinese culture. After this event, the used of basil in China became more and more widely. It was even treated as a lucky plant, and people wanted to keep them in their house praying for safety and health in the Chinese culture. Basil is also widely used in Chinese herbology. Basil has the ability to treat headache, fever, cold, and many other illness. Rumours the people who are going to hiking should keep some basil in their pocket because the basil has an abillity to prevent bitten by the snake

In conclusion, basil is one of the greatest plant and herb in the world. Not only because of the use in general cooking in many countries’ food, but also because of its ability to treat many different disease. Since basil has a long history in people’s life, the folklore and superstition relating to basil were interested to learn and know, but we should have our own ability to classify the authority of these folklore and superstition. We should be aware of these superstition stories of basil since most of them had no scientific evidence to support the truth behind it.

Work Cited