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Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Seldom Just Food:
Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions

By: Frank M. Dugan

Introduction

The notion that humans ascended to civilization in discernible stages was more 
popular in the past than at present. However, it has long been noted that certain 
premodern practices have more in common with magic per se than with religion 
(including “higher” religion of ancient times, e.g. Olympian gods of the Greeks and 
Romans) and were held by some to precede religion and then coexist with it (Harrison 
1922, Frazer 1955). These magical practices, emphasizing placation or deterrence 
rather than supplication (prayer) or contemplation (meditation), are termed 
apotropaic, and remain the subject of contemporary scholarship (Wilson 2000). 
Ritualistic practices for warding off harm to crops, or for protection of persons and 
habitations, survive as vestiges in various modern customs and holidays (Dugan 2015a). 
Certain plants were essential for rituals intended to protect not just the crop, but 
also people and dwellings. Beans (Vicia faba), for example, were “used to lay ghosts 
at the Lemuria,” and featured in other Greek and Roman festivals, especially those 
propitiating the dead (Andrews 1949). Cakes of barley (Hordeum vulgare) were offered 
to propitiate various chthonic spirits, including pre-Olympian snake deities (Harrison 
1927). Garlic (Allium sativum), arguably the world’s most well-known apotropaic 
plant, acquired such functions centuries prior to its clichéd effects on vampires. 

Garlic, one of the earliest domesticated vegetables, is of somewhat uncertain 
lineage, originating perhaps from Allium longicuspis (Zohary et al. 2012). In the 
ancient Near East and Mediterranean it early acquired a reputation as a medicinal 
plant, subsuming both magical and culinary uses. This article reveals that by 
Greek and Roman times, there was a considerable body of folklore associated 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

with garlic, extending through medieval and premodern times. Garlic became 
distributed throughout the Old World, and (after the Columbian Exchange) the 
New World. This review is restricted to traditions of Europe and the Mediterranean 
(including the Levant). Contributions from elsewhere (e.g., the Americas, 
Iran) are introduced only when strongly pertinent to European traditions. 

The primary contention of this work is that distinguishing magical, medicinal and 
culinary aspects of garlic is a recent innovation; that garlic has been strongly 
perceived as apotropaic throughout its history, and continues to be so in much 
contemporary lore and usage. Second, Southern Europe and the Levant, and Northern 
Europe (including the British Isles), possess allied but distinct sets of garlic folkways, 
understandable in the context of the spread of garlic cultivation. A capsule historical 
biogeography precedes a review of garlic in folkways, including (i) Mediterranean 
and Balkan, and (ii) Nordic and pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon. Related aspects of 
ethnomedicine and regional cuisine are sketched prior to conclusions, with remarks 
on limitations of folkloristic classification (types, motifs) for the study of plant lore.

Historical Biogeography 

Prehistory in the Levant

Archaeobotanical materials from the Levant date from the Neolithic. Sometimes 
remains of garlic may persist as the papery tunic, or as the basal plate, including in 
kitchen waste (van der Veen 2007). Finds of onion (Allium cepa) bulb scales, and a 
garlic bulb and cloves were excavated in a Chalcolithic context near the Dead Sea, 
and remains of what are thought to be kurrat leek (usually considered a variety of 
Allium ampeloprasum) were recovered in Early Bronze Age Jericho (Leach 1982). 
“The discovery of garlic in such an early context is particularly important for it 
could only be grown from cloves or inflorescence bulbils,” i.e., absence of true 
seed and necessity of vegetative propagation imply cultivation (Leach 1982).

 

Ancient and Classical Antiquity



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

The normal absence of seed in garlic has strong implications for interpretation of 
the archaeobotanical record, as tubers, bulbs or corms do not readily preserve. In 
Europe, archaeobotanical evidence of garlic and onion is rare (Badura et al. 2013). 
Garlic must have been common, as otherwise the chances of finding a carbonized 
clove would have been nearly zero (Bakels 2009). Vandorpe writes that “findings 
of garlic are not very common in Roman times North of the Alps. Five findings 
of carbonised garlic cloves are known … from the graveyard at Windisch Dägerli 
[Switzerland]…, a grave in Augst [Switzerland] …, another graveyard in Arconciel 
[Switzerland]…, a cellar in the villa in Gerlingen [Germany]… and the military camp 
in Novaesium [Germany]” (Vandorpe 2010). Even sparser is evidence of A. sativum in 
archaeobotanical or textual contexts for the British Isles. Leek (“Allium cf. porrum”, 
attested by archaeobotanical remains) and “wild” chives (A. schoenoprasum, 
attested in feral populations and centuries-old folklore) are indicated for Roman 
Britain (Britton and Huntley 2011, Witcher 2013). Leek (but not garlic) receives 
passing mention in a review of archaeobotany of Romano-British gardens (van der 
Veen et al. 2007). Fragments of a tablet from the Roman fort at Vindolanda near 
Hadrian’s Wall refer to garlic and garlic paste, probably representing “supplies for the 
praetorium rather than the ordinary soldier” (Déry 1997). Neither ‘garlic’ nor ‘Allium’ 
is listed in a review of Roman gardens in Britain (Cunliffe 1981), nor does Livarda 
(2008) document garlic remains in Britain. A conservative conclusion is that garlic 
was present in Roman Britain, but not yet common and perhaps only imported. In 
continental Europe north of the Mediterranean, garlic became absent or very scarce 
after the end of Roman times (Livarda 2008). A high proportion of garlic remains in 
Roman Europe were associated with burials, and also with temples (Livarda 2008).

  

In drier climes, there is definitive evidence even in the absence of charring, e.g., 
the garlic basal plates and clove from Mons Porphyrites (Egypt, mid-late 2nd century 
AD) (Figure 3 in van der Veen 2007). Older instances of onions and garlic in Egypt 
include 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (Leach 1982). Leek (A. ampeloprasum) was also 
identified from these times in Egypt, but apart from finds at Jericho and the Dead 
Sea above, “there are no unequivocal records of cultivated ‘vegetables’ before 
3000 B.C.” (Leach 1982). Miscellaneous sources on Mesopotamian crops indicate that 
Assyrian gardens contained leek, garlic and several kinds of onion (Leach 1982).

  



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

By the time of Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) and Columella (4 to ca. 70 AD), 
several species of Allium were known to Roman gardeners: leeks, two or three 
types of garlic, chives, and several types of bulb onion. They may have also 
known shallots (usually considered a variety of A. cepa) and bunching onion, 
A. fistulosum (Leach 1982). Prior to these authors, the Greek Theophrastus 
(ca. 370–278 BC) described leeks, garlic and several types of onion.

Carbonized Roman-era remains of garlic cloves have been discovered in Herculaneum 
(Meyer 1980), and in Oedenburg and Entrains-sur-Nohain, France (Badura et al. 
2013). Charred garlic gloves were excavated from a necropolis on the Greek 
island of Limenas (4th century BC) (Mégloudi et al. 2007, with photographs, 
and commentary on garlic in Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Aristophanes, 
Pliny and other ancient authors). There were garlic cloves in a room burned 
by invading Persians at Sardis in the mid-6th century BC (Nesbitt 1995). 

Due to absence of archaeobotanical remains, it is unknown when garlic was 
introduced to Scandinavia (Karg et al. 2015).  However, “the old Norse word 
‘laukr’, meaning onion or leek is common in the first poems and sagas” (Leino and 
Hagenblad 2014). Ibn Fadlādlan, an Arab historian, noted that Vikings on the Volga 
River had onions onboard their ships (Leino and Hagenblad 2014). The word ‘lauka 
R’ appears engraved in runic script on gold bracteates, and there is evidence for 
plants identified as ‘Allium sp.’ in BCE Denmark and AD 1-400 Netherlands (Sloth et 
al. 2012). Garlic per se however, is not documented for this period in Scandinavia.

Medieval through premodern times

Garlic was obviously cultivated in southern and some more northern parts of 
Europe during antiquity. What of medieval Europe? There is controversy about 
the earliest gardening (i.e., vegetable gardening, as opposed to farming of 
cereals or pulses) amongst “barbarians” during the Migration Period (ca. 300–
700 AD): Rösch claims, “Obviously the Alamanni [one of the Germanic tribes] 
continued the Roman tradition of horticulture without interruption. … But it 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

cannot be ruled out totally that the Alamanni only harvested from the abandoned 
Roman gardens and did no cultivation for themselves…But several cultivated 
Allium species of southeastern origin were introduced to central Europe by the 
Romans … for example Allium sativum, A. cepa or A. porrum” (Rösch 2008). 
The presence of garlic in the Carpathian region during the late Migration Period 
(~600 AD) is contained in the archaeological record according to the synopsis 
of Gyulai (2006), and is similarly attested as present during medieval times.

Garlic is described in Christian and Islamic writings 
from medieval through premodern times.

The plant is attested in Moorish Spain in at least six period manuscripts (Harvey 
1992a) and elsewhere by the famed Persian polymath, Al-Biruni (~1050 AD); 
later garlic was mentioned by the Islamic scholar Qasim ibn Yusuf (~1515 AD) of 
Herat (Harvey 1976). Of course garlic persisted in the Mediterranean where it 
had been long established. Planting of garlic (amongst other specified plants, 
e.g., leeks, chives and onions) was mandated by statute for family gardens in 
the Italian commune of Montagutolo dell’ Ardinghesca, ca. 1290 (Duby 1998). 

The Breviarum rerum fiscalium (initiated during Charlemagne’s reign) lists garlic 
in the inventories of various Carolingian courts (Hahn 1996). A contemporary 
manuscript, the Capitulare de Villis, written between 792 and 800 AD at the behest 
of Charlemagne and listing plants to be propagated in royal gardens, specifies 
garlic (‘alia’) as well as leek, onions, chives, and shallots (Hahn 1996, Pearson 
1997, Bakels 2009). Royal estates of the same era in northern France contained 
garlic, leeks, onions and shallots (Pearson 1997). Garlic was surely present in 
Britain by this time, as garlic was repeatedly mentioned in Anglo-Saxon documents 
reflecting knowledge prior to the Norman Conquest (Cockayne 1864, 1865, 
1866). Garlic eventually became well established in medieval Europe (Fig. 1).

Although garlic was present in medieval British gardens, there are controversies 
about other Allium spp.: A. oleraceum, A. scorodoprasum and A. vinale, which 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

some authorities consider as natives, but others believe to be introductions 
(Preston et al. 2004). Cockayne (1865, 1866) cites several instances of ambiguity 
regarding identity of plants named in leechbooks. Although identity is clear in 
some instances, in others a given name such as ‘garlic’ or ‘cropleek’ or ‘leac’ might 
refer, depending on context, to A. sativum, A. oleraceum or A. porrum. Modern 
scholarship echoes some of these concerns, e.g. for ‘cropleac’ or ‘porleac’ (Pollington 
2000). Certain identification of a plant as A. sativum in later manuscripts may also 
be problematic. A list of ‘Herbys necessary for a garden by letter’ entered into a 
cookery book (British Library, Sloane MS 1201, “The Fromond List” ~1525) contains 
“one manifest addition, presumptively of later date … common garlic” (Harvey 1989). 
The actual name in the list, Seyt Mar Garlek, probably indicates Allium sativum. 

 

Fig. 1. Garlic harvest, from the Tacuina sanitatis (14th century). Wikimedia. 

Grieg (1995/1996) tabulated British and European archaeobotanical records for garlic 
in the 13th century, and British archaeological or historical records in 13th, 14th, 
15th and 16th centuries. From the Infirmarer’s Garden of Westminster Abbey (the 
garden survives to the present as the College Garden), garlic was documented in 
1323 and 1340 (and leeks and onions in that time period as well), and in 1339-1340, 
garlic was purchased for planting (Harvey 1992b). Other records of that time period 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

indicate presence of garlic in other contemporary gardens, royal or monastic (Harvey 
1992b). An extended work in verse, Mayster Jon’s Gardener’s Treatise, comprises 
“the first coherent account of horticultural technique in our language [English]” 
(Harvey 1985). The surviving version appears to have originated in Glastonbury 
Abbey, and has apparent reference to Anglo-Norman Ireland. The work refers to 
garlic (‘garlek’) as well as onion (‘onynyns’ and other variants in spelling). Master 
John’s work dates to sometime after 1350, to perhaps ~1380 (Harvey 1985). 

Badura et al. (2013) listed garlic from Beverly, UK (post-Roman); and Laufen, 
Switzerland (medieval). The authors, whose primary objective was reporting 
on garlic from a fifteenth century shipwreck, also cited literature (in Polish) on 
the Teutonic Knights’ perceptions of longevity of garlic and onion in storage. 
Teutonic Knight documents from 14th century Gdańsk (present day Poland) refer 
to onion, and 15th century documents to both onion and garlic; archaeobotanical 
evidence for both plants is available from the latter time (Badura et al. 2015).

Folklore

Garlic in folktales and in folk motifs

Neither Aarne (1961) nor Uther (2004) index garlic in their tale type indexes, 
probably because the plant is never the protagonist of a tale, but garlic does appear 
in some tales assigned to tale types. Thompson’s (1955-1958) six volume guide 
to motifs in folktales contains multiple entries for garlic. Examples in Thompson 
(1955-1958) include the familiar power of garlic to protect against evil (motif 
number D1385.2.8) as documented in Talmudic literature. Association of garlic with 
lower social strata is apparent when a servant asks his master for weaponry of a 
knight, but the master only gives the servant a stalk of garlic (motif J955.3). 

There are other garlic motifs indexed in Thompson (1955-1958), including a highly 
prejudiced account, “why Jews smell bad” (“They rubbed Christ’s body with garlic” 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

motif A1662.1). Folklore reflects the biases, prejudices and even cruelty of the 
folk from which it is collected (Bell 2009) and folklore on garlic is no exception. 
Much lore on garlic reflects historical animus of privileged social strata against 
peasants and other poor persons, or stigmatized social groups. Garlic and Onion 
Peddler (Fig. 2) was intended to illustrate “the lowest type of immigrant–the 
Russian Jew,” with “inborn filthy habits” who “only wash when it rains on them” 
(Stephens 1917). That garlic was consciously employed for this sort of vitriol is 
a harsh reminder of the unpleasant side of folklore, including lore on garlic.

 

Fig. 2. Garlic and Onion Peddler. The photograph of a heavily burdened child peddler, 
potentially evoking sympathy and compassion, was actually intended by the anti-
Semitic author to induce revulsion against the boy’s ethnic affiliation (Stephens 1917).

Garlic and onion are often seen as related (as of course they are). Introductions to 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

the folklore of these plants sometimes begin with the cliché of Satan’s departure 
from the Garden of Eden, whereupon onion sprang from the soil where his right 
foot first stepped, and garlic arose from where touched his left foot (Wilson 
1953, Grieve 1971, Watts 2007), but corresponding tale types or motifs were not 
referenced. The kinship of garlic with onion is reflected in a Latvian tale of their 
marriage (motif B286.1). There are, however, instances in which garlic (or onion) 
is central to the plot of a given tale and in which the tale is assigned a type.

For example, tale type ATU 804 is “St. Peter’s Mother Falls from Heaven,” wherein 
St. Peter (or another saint) is given permission to pull his wicked mother up from 
Hell with an onion skin (or twist of garlic, or leek). Other sinners grab her feet and 
she falls back into Hell. There are versions worldwide in over two dozen languages 
(Uther 2004, Marianthi 2006). Another example is “The Garlic Patch,” from Basile’s 
17th century Pentamerone (2007 translation by Canepa). A father of seven daughters 
is so poor that his only income is from his garlic patch. One daughter disguises herself 
in male attire (tale type ATU 514), cures a rich man’s son, and eventually all seven 
are married to the wealthy man’s seven sons. Folklorist Jack Zipes (2002) expounded 
on the centrality of garlic: “Garlic marks the man and his family, a stench that he 
wants to expunge.” Garlic is emblematic of and synonymous with low social station. 

Garlic appears in tale types or motifs about wealth conferred on the deserving (and 
denied to the undeserving). In tale type ATU 851, “The Princess Who Cannot Solve 
the Riddle,” the princess will marry whoever can pose a riddle she cannot solve. 
Usually the suitor is a peasant boy or shepherd. In subtype 851C (South European 
variants), she can’t resolve a riddle involving “Ajo, majo pico en piedras,” garlic 
crushed on a stone (Goldberg 1993). In “Journey to the Land of Cats” (from Palestine, 
motif-index number J2415.9.1 in MacDonald and Sturm 2001), a kind old woman is 
taken to the village of cats, and given a bag of onion and garlic peels to put under 
her bed. They turn to silver and gold. When an unkind neighbor imitates her, her 
peels turn to bees and wasps. In a similar motif, the youngest son of a merchant 
displays no talent for business, but is shipwrecked with a store of onions in a foreign 
land that has no onions but so many diamonds that the gems are without value. 
The son trades his onions for diamonds and manages to return home. His jealous 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

older brothers arrive at this foreign land with a cargo of garlic, and the king of the 
land offers to trade the most valuable commodity in the land for their garlic. The 
brothers happily accept, and obtain in return for their garlic a full cargo of … onions! 
(Kimmel 1996, from the Jewish tradition). The story is assigned to motif-index 
number J2415.1.0.1.1 “where pebbles are diamonds” (MacDonald and Sturm 2001).

In “The Two Brothers” occurs a variation on the ‘filthy lucre’ theme, wherein 
stolen garlic and onions are used to make pills of cooked filth, a “medicine” 
conferring the power to break a curse that protects buried treasure and enables 
its theft (Dorson 1949). There is no tale type precisely corresponding, but there 
are many allied motifs involving the humor of excreta and combining such with 
avarice and money. In this “Two Brothers” tale, garlic mediates themes of 
banality and prosperity. Conversely, rotten garlic can be a metaphor for mental 
deterioration. From a collection of insults in Portuguese we have: Cabeça de 
alho chocho, roughly, “rotten garlic head” (Dodson and Vanderplank 2007). An 
alternative transliteration and translation, also from the Portuguese, is cabeça 
d’alho xoxo “he has a head of rotten garlic” or “he is crazy” (Bonoid 2005).

Older compilations of plant lore addressed garlic, but unfortunately with minimal 
(sometimes no) attribution. Examples include Thiselton-Dyer (1889), who informed 
readers that “to dream of garlic indicates the discovery of hidden treasures, but 
[also] the approach of some domestic quarrel.” On Midsummer night, the Bolognese, 
“who regard garlic as the symbol of abundance” buy it as a charm against poverty 
(Thiselton-Dyer 1889). Folkard (1884) contains numerous references to garlic, but 
documentation is sporadic: “The seed of Garlic is black; it obscures the eyes with 
blackness and darkness” (Folkard 1884, discussing the doctrine of signatures). The 
designation of the plant is ambiguous, since Allium sativum seldom produces seed. 
Also with regard to doctrine of signatures, Folkard (1884) conveys this: “Garlic (from 
the Anglo-Saxon words gár, a spear, and leác, a plant) was, from its acute tapering 
leaves, marked out as the war plant of the warriors and poets of the North.”



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Magical properties (i): Mediterranean, Balkans and Western Asia

Magical properties of garlic denoted in folklore are ramified and overlapping in 
function. “Garlic was … known in [Roman] antiquity for its protective powers… 
it imparted a warlike spirit or gave apotropaic protection against evil” (Gowers 
1993). Romans, convinced of the power of garlic to banish evil spirits, adorned 
house walls with pictures of the plant, as attested by many excavations from 
Pompeii (Hahn 1996). Titinius (2nd century BC) stressed the power of the plant to 
protect children from a “virose, mammalian strix” that was “plainly chiropterous” 
(Oliphant 1913). This would be a wonderful bit of folklore if vampire bats were 
indigenous to Eurasia, but unfortunately vampire bats are all New World species.

Romans and Persians were famously adversarial in antiquity, but garlic had 
apotropaic functions in both cultures, although evidence presented here from 
Persia is of later date. Matin (2012) documented in Persian folklore (including “the 
Zoroastrians of Yazd”) that the plant (along with other strong smelling plants like 
onion and asafoetida, Ferula assafoetida) had “magical potential to ward off wicked 
creatures, like jinns, āls, and fairies.” Virgin girls and pregnant women must be 
protected from “jealous āls and imps.” Garlic is also useful against “eye-smiting” 
(the evil eye) and may be placed over doors or under the pillows of infants (Matin 
2012). It is used for rain-making ceremonies in certain mountainous locations (Matin 
2012). The Zoroastrians believe in garlic as “a symbol of environmental cleaning, 
disinfection, bodily health, and eye-smiting protection” and take care that garlic 
skins, potentially useful in satanic magic, be disposed of properly (Matin 2012). 
Conversely, skins may be burned to produce purifying odors (Matin 2012). The latter 
ritual must be carefully conducted to avoid arousing divine anger (Matin 2012). 

Apotropaic functions are especially visible in Balkan folklore. In addition to 
protection against witches, garlic was useful for their detection. According 
to Serbs in Sumadija and near the Croatian border, witches are said never 
to eat garlic because of their intolerance for the odor (Vukanović 1989a).  
Counterintuitive to this notion is the contention that if certain rituals are 
followed in planting and harvesting garlic, witches may be detected by their 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

requests for the plant. These rituals are arcane, including planting garlic in 
a snake’s head, harvesting the garlic on Easter, St. Peter’s day or the Feast 
of the Annunciation, and then wearing it to church (Vukanović 1989a). 

 

In Serbia, because it is on Christmas and Easter that witches are most inclined to eat 
people, it was prudent for persons to rub themselves with garlic in order to repel 
these cannibals (Vukanović 1989b). Rubbing children with garlic on these days should 
be accompanied by a verbal charm indicating that only after a witch has counted all 
blades of grass and all leaves on trees (a virtual impossibility) can the child be eaten 
(Vukanović 1989b).  Additional protections were placing garlic on the windowsill on St. 
Thomas’s Day, eating it before bed, etc. As before, the witch is given an impossible 
task (in this case counting all stars in the sky and all grains of sand in the sea) before 
being allowed to do mischief. Children rubbed with garlic may be further protected 
by turning a broom upside down behind the door, or placing a spit with an eggshell 
above the door, etc., to prevent the entry of a witch or incubus (Vukanović 1989b). 
Newborns are especially vulnerable, hence placement of garlic (and knives or scissors! 
and matches!) in or under cradles, or under the pillow (Vukanović 1989b). Fathers 
in couvade were allowed garlic and a comb (but apparently not knives or scissors) 
when they lay with the child in bed (Vukanović 1989b). Depredations of witches were 
regarded as real. For Serbian gypsy women who have lost a child, Čvorović (2013) 
documented the mothers’ affirmation of innocence and the blaming of witches. 

“As in many other European folk beliefs, garlic is considered the best defense 
against living or dead strigoi [Romanian witches]” (Eliade 1975). “The most effective 
protection against the fairies is garlic and mugwort, that is, the same magico-
medicinal plants that are in the bag tied atop the ‘flag’ of the căluşari [a society of 
Romanian ritual dancers]. The căluşari chew as much garlic as they can stand, and, 
in the course of the cure, the leader spits garlic on the patient’s face” (Eliade 1975). 
Witches, strigele in Murgoci (1926), meet in the mountains, dance, and say, “Nup, 
Cuisnup, in casa cu ustoroi nu ma duc” (Nup, Cuisnup, I won’t enter any house where 
there is garlic). Murgoci (1926) gives strigoi (fem. strigoica) as the most common name 
for vampires, with moroii “perhaps the next most common.” There are other terms 
as well, with overlapping meanings, “used as if all were birds of the same feather.” 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

In Bulgaria, bands of dancers analogous to the căluşari were called rusaltsi or 
kalushari (Barber 2013). Barber (2013) weaves an intricate (and controversial – see 
Cash 2013) hypothesis: that certain, putatively ancient, forms of dance in Eastern 
Europe reflect transfer of fertility from woodland and river nymphs to peasant 
farmers and their fields. What is of interest here is the recurring apotropaic use 
of garlic. Other herbs used, in conjunction with garlic or separately, included 
wormwood (Artemesia spp.) and lovage (Levisticum officinale). All were protective 
against potentially dangerous female spirits. Garlic, most often combined with 
wormwood, was carried in a pole or “flag” specific to a given troupe (as in 
Romania, above), or sometimes worn, carried in the hands or chewed. Garlic and 
wormwood repelled such spirits, whilst roses, birch, parsley and others attracted 
them. Pieces of garlic used by căluşari dancers were believed to be especially 
potent for curing, and were preserved throughout the year (Wilson 2000).

Garlic warded off additional dangers, nautical, natal and legal: “You see it [garlic] 
… in every sailing-vessel as a preventive against shipwreck” (Spencer 1851). This 
was an old tradition, as both Greeks and Turks might hang bunches of garlic 
over the stern as an apotropaic measure (Watts 2007). Use against the ‘Evil 
Eye’ is addressed in detail below. In Romanian belief, stealing during pregnancy 
could incline the unborn child to become a thief. However, “the mother … can 
provide protection to her unborn ‘thief’ child if she gives birth …while holding 
two cloves of garlic in her hands, so that he will never get caught” (Hulubaş 
2011). Without impugning the future integrity of the infant, pregnant women in 
Lorraine (France) might eat plenty of garlic if they desired a boy (Watts 2007).

Magical properties (ii): Northern Europe

From Roman Iron Age Denmark (Bornholm) an amulet box containing remains 
of Allium was excavated from a woman’s grave. The plant was probably not 
garlic but related A. scorodoprasum (sand garlic) (Karg et al. 2015). Apotropaic 
uses of garlic in pre-conquest (prior to 1066 AD) Anglo-Saxon traditions include 
incorporation into a talisman to prevent a man from being ridden by “a mare 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

or a hag” (i.e., a nightmare or a witch) (Cockayne 1865). Similarly, garlic may 
be used in “a salve against the elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors” and may 
protect “women with whom the devil hath carnal commerce.” It is best not only 
to use correct ingredients, but to put them under a church altar, and sing masses 
over them or to repeatedly perform the sign of the cross (Cockayne 1865). These 
same practices, differing in details, are related by Grendon (1909) and Rohde 
(1922). The plant was also used to expel demoniae from “fiend sick” persons, by 
concocting a drink (consumed from a church bell) with this and other herbs, and 
with use of holy water, psalms, prayer and the giving of alms (Cockayne 1865).

  

Although separated from the above rituals by centuries, a similar apotropaic 
use of garlic is apparent against a skogsrå (succubus). Every night, the skogsrå 
would come to the house and steal away a woman’s husband, who was powerless 
to resist. But one night the woman met the skogsrå before she could enter the 
home, and solicited her advice about “a bull who never came home at night.” 
The skogsrå helpfully replied that the beast must be fed with garlic, tar, and 
grass from the north side of a chimney. When this remedy was applied to the 
husband, the spell was broken. The skogsrå ruefully admitted that the wife 
had tricked her (Lindow 1978, from a version collected in 1931 from a Swedish 
crofter born in 1840).  Pollington (2000) stated, without attribution, that garlic 
“could be worn to protect against the walking dead on All Hallows Eve.”  

Use of garlic to protect infants from malign forces has been indicated above for 
Mediterranean regions. Garlic was also among objects (holy water, crosses, the 
Bible, or iron objects like scissors, knives or nails) that when placed near an infant 
could prevent its abduction by fairies in the British Isles (Buccola 2006).  Similar 
traditions are evident in later Germanic or Nordic belief, e.g., placing garlic together 
with a sharp instrument in the cradle protected an un-baptized child from fairies 
(Henderson 1879). Similarities to practices in Southern Europe are obvious.

Apotropaic functions of garlic are evident in New World folklore too. In 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

a survey of North American folklore on the evil eye, it was found that 
“use of garlic is principally apotropaic” (Hand 1980). Such use (including 
against witchcraft) in North America includes garlic worn as an amulet or 
carried as cloves in Utah (Salt Lake, Midvale, Magna, Vernal), Ohio (Hand 
1980, 1983) and by Italian-Americans in New York City (Berger 2012). 

Magical properties (iii): The Evil Eye 

Within a given region, multiple botanicals may be used protectively against 
the evil eye. Sometimes botanicals may derive from different traditions. In 
Tuscany, use of Buxus (boxwood) and Juniperus spp. (juniper) is plausibly 
traced to Germanic folklore via the Longobards (Lombards), whereas use 
of Foeniculum vulgare (fennel) and Allium sativum is probably from Greco-
Roman tradition (Pieroni and Giusti 2002). This use of garlic is widespread and 
apparently of considerable time depth in the Mediterranean and Levant.

In Spanish Salamanca (in a “witches’ village” of local tradition), rue (Ruta montana) 
was most commonly used to deter witches, but garlic was also used against the 
evil eye (González et al. 2011). Rue (Ruta graveolens) was primary against the 
evil eye among the Sephardim, but garlic was commonly employed (Zumwalt 
1996). Indiscrete compliments may provoke the attentions of the evil eye, so 
such compliments were often followed by, “Let it go to the garlic” (Zumwalt 
1996). Cloves might be integrated into necklaces (Fig. 3), usually with blue beads, 
or placed under the pillow, by windows or doors, carried in a pocket, or sewn 
into a shirt to protect infants (Zumwalt 1996). Analogous use of garlic against 
the evil eye was specified for Wallachian and Bulgarian children by 19th century 
travelers (Campenhausen 1808, and St. Clair and Brophy 1869, respectively).

 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Fig. 3. Baby with necklace of cloves, from Zumwalt (1996). (The children 
of Alberto Cohen, Turkey, c. 1930; Beit Hatfutsot Photo Archive, Tel Aviv, 
courtesy of Rachel Altalef via MORIT-Legacy of Turkish Jewry)

In Greece, even the word ‘garlic’ was laden with apotropaic function against 
the evil eye, and would be exclaimed in the event of inappropriate public praise 
of a child (McCartney 1992). Similarly, garlic was suspended from the branches 
of trees if compliments were inappropriately bestowed on orchards or gardens 
(McCartney 1992). Garlic on one’s person, under the pillow or on a bonnet had 
apotropaic powers against the evil eye used against “new-made mothers” or 
children (Hardie 1992). Garlic plus fennel was placed by a healer (a benandante) 
under the pillow or by the bed, so witches would not molest a sleeping child 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

(Ginzburg 2013). Also, garlic with fennel and other plants was used by a benandante 
to treat the sick (Ginzburg 2013). The 17th century Italian benandanti professed 
to be Christians, were notoriously anti-witchcraft and anti-witch, but themselves 
were held suspect by authorities and eventually persecuted (Ginsburg 2013).

Garlic was an accompaniment of incense to counteract the evil eye against infants in 
Lebanon (Harfouche 1992). Garlic might be incorporated along with other substances 
(e.g., pepper, bread crumbs, pieces of a child’s caul, salt) into an amulet, or for 
protection of an animal, tied to the tail (Murgoci 1992). However, wearing garlic might 
be insufficient to ward off the evil eye of a powerful curse (Pitré 1992, for Italy).

Maclagan’s (1902) attempt to locate the evil eye in the Acallan na Senórach 
(medieval Irish, 12th century) is not altogether convincing, but the evil eye can be 
documented in folklore from much later periods in the British Isles. Garlic is not 
mentioned in Maclagan (1902). Dundes (1992) noted “the evil eye complex in the 
Celtic world” but provided little documentation other than the Cyclops-like Balor, 
who had a single eye and stole cattle; garlic is not mentioned in Dundes (1992), 
whose primary analyses consisted of Freudian gymnastics of heroic proportions 
to establish equivalence of eyes (evil or otherwise) with breasts and genitals. 
However, garlic could be worn, together with other articles in an amulet, against 
the evil eye in 19th century Ireland (Mooney 1887), or hung over the bed for 
the same purpose in Scotland (Abercromby et al. 1994). Although use of garlic 
against the evil eye was detected in the British Isles in the 19th century, the 
practice was much less pervasive than for Southern Europe and the Levant. 

Magical properties (iv): Garlic against vampires

Although creatures allied with death and feeding on humans occur in various 
ancient or medieval traditions, “the word vampire postdates the Middle Ages” 
(Petzoldt 2002). In British tradition the use of garlic against creatures explicitly 
specified as vampires is late, only “since the publication of Bram Stroker’s Dracula 
in 1897” (Alexander 2002), although ‘vampire’ appeared in print in English as early 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

as 1741 and probably derives from Serbian upirina “ghost, monster” (Petzoldt 
2002). According to Simpson and Roud, “it is often assumed that the concept of 
the vampire was unknown in England until imported (in glamorized form) by 19th-
century novelists” but various vampire-like creatures occur as early as late 12th 
century (Simpson and Roud 2000). The Oxford English Dictionary traces etymology 
of ‘vampire’ to Slavonic sources in Central Europe and the Balkans. Voltaire (a 
skeptic on these matters) remarked that vampires were not found in London or Paris; 
the locus classicus of vampire stories was 18th century Belgrade (Barber 1987).

Deterrence of vampires by means of garlic has become a cliché, but has a basis 
in genuine folkways. Murgoci (1926), cataloging uses of garlic against the vampire 
in Romania (multiple late 19th century sources), noted that garlic may be placed 
in the mouth of a dead person who might potentially become a vampire.  Among 
the South Slavs, “It is known that a man is a vampire if he does not eat garlic.” 

Vampires fight with (or ride on) hemp brakes, devices used to process hemp into 
fiber, and may visit houses and ask for them. If they enter, inhabitants should 
place needles on the house threshold, accompanied by garlic. This traps the 
vampire in the house until it “gets out the needles and removes the garlic … thus 
proving she is a vampire (strigoica)” (Murgoci 1926). Murgoci noted that especially 
on St. Andrew’s Eve, St. George’s Eve, before Easter and before the New Year, 
windows should be shut and “anointed with garlic in the form of a cross, [with] 
garlic put on the door and everything in the house, and all the cows in the 
cowshed should be rubbed with garli.” (Murgoci 1926). Since vampires enter by 
chimneys and keyholes, these apertures must be rubbed with garlic. In Greece 
and Macedonia the general name for vampire is vȃrcolac, but in Romania the term 
only exceptionally means a vampire, and usually denotes a werewolf; garlic has 
efficacy against wolves and various evil spirits, too (Murgoci 1926). Tying a clove 
around the neck of “the leading ewe” putatively would deter wolf attacks on sheep 
and similarly, if fed to poultry, would deter weasels (Watts 2007). One suspects 
these methods (or rather, the livestock) would not survive rigorous testing.



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Johnson (2001) concisely reviewed the use of garlic in destroying vampires (“cut 
off the head and fill the mouth with garlic”) or averting them (wreaths of garlic 
flowers, garlic crosses in windows, rubbing of livestock with garlic, placing of 
garlic in chimneys or keyholes). Reviewing the “classical aversion of the vampire to 
garlic,” Maas and Voets (2014), speculated on contributions to the myth from certain 
compounds in garlic that induce a heme-degrading enzyme, thereby exacerbating 
porphyria, a condition involving defects in synthesis of heme and resulting in 
anemia. Other possible diseases potentially contributing to the vampire myth are 
rabies and pellagra (Maas and Voets 2014). A short but entertaining list of uses of 
garlic against vampires in modern film and literature is provided by Vickery (1995).

Magical properties (v): Plant lists from witch trials

Counterintuitive is the notion that garlic not only deters witches, but it may be used 
by them. Garlic is among plants referenced by documents from witch trials in Poland, 
and used in tonics against coughs and colds, worms, to treat mouth sores in cattle, 
and of course for apotropaic purposes (against witches). It was also used to increase 
dairy production (Ostling 2014). Field garlic (A. vineale) had similar uses. Ostling (2014) 
purports to join others who contend that “the persecuted female healer joins the 
myth of the midwife witch in the dustbin of history.” Actually, more than sixty plants 
are documented from these trials (Ostling 2014), so it is the case that persons using 
plants were caught up in the witch craze. However, most collectors of plants were 
not persecuted for witchcraft, in large measure because they were the economically 
important source of plants for apothecaries throughout Europe (Dugan 2011). 

Allium schoenoprasum ssp. sibricum (Siberian chive), but not garlic per se, was 
an ingredient in a potion prepared by woman condemned as a witch in Finnmark, 
Norway in 1626, and the same plant had apotropaic functions (Alm 2003). In Russia, 
in the town of Dobry, a woman tried for witchcraft in 1690 possessed “a little knot” 
with a garlic clove and two wax seals, and other everyday plant items (Kivelson 
and Shaheen 2011).  By the time of the witch trials, association of the plant and 
other Allium spp. with witches seems to have had roots in both Northern and 
Southern Europe. “The Romans … left dishes of garlic at the crossroad shrines of 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

the witch-goddess Hecate” (Gowers 1993). The woman’s grave with an amulet box 
containing remains of Allium in Denmark (Karg 2015) is probably germane here, as 
were pagan Scandinavian rituals involving severed penises of stallions wrapped in 
Allium leaves; the Church, personified by St. Olaf, took a dim view (Shenk 2002).

Medicine

Synoptic treatments of garlic in medicine are so numerous that only a few are 
addressed here. Typical of much literature is Shah (2014), useful for breadth 
(from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the modern era), but exemplifying 
credulity regarding efficacy against cancer or other diseases. Other reviews also 
document scope of use, but are skeptical of efficacy, e.g., Block (2010) on treating 
tuberculosis via inhalation of garlic oil. Several in vitro studies demonstrate 
effectiveness of garlic extracts against drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium 
tuberculosis (Dini et al. 2011) but conclusions are typical: “It is appropriate to 
further investigate” (Dini et al. 2011). Less skepticism is evident for claims on anti-
parasitic properties, e.g. Block (2010) on garlic against intestinal parasites in vitro. 

Historical context

In antiquity, certain foods were “on the borderline between foods and drugs 
… for example, onion and garlic and many aromatics” (Wilkins and Hill 2006). 
According to the classification of the famous Greek physician Galen (born 129 
AD), “these plants are possibly not nutritious foods (trophai), for they are 
all opsa, like onions, garlic, leeks, wild leeks and all sharp plants” (Wilkins 
and Hill 2006). Aristotelian philosophers attempted to define the differences 
between drugs and foods (although the Hippocratics avoided this separation), 
and in fact garlic exemplified a “food-drug continuum” although it was 
“primarily an item of diet” (Totelin 2015, with explications of the role of garlic 
in various Hippocratic writings, in Galen, Pseudo-Galen, and others).

The Egyptian Codex Ebers (the Ebers Papyrus, ca. 1550 BC) recommended garlic 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

against abnormal growths, circulatory diseases and parasites (Rivlin 
2001). Biblical reference to garlic (Numbers 11:5) specifies only that 
after leaving Egypt, garlic was amongst the foods remembered by 
the Jews, although Rivlin (2001) states that they “were fed garlic 
and other allium vegetables, apparently to give them strength 
and increase their productivity.”  Rivlin (2001) also contends that 
garlic was used to bestow strength on athletes during the earliest 
Olympics (“one of the first … ‘performance enhancing’ agents”) 
and that garlic was used for the same purpose by Roman sailors 
and soldiers. Since garlic was considered by the Greeks to bestow 
strength, it was eaten by Greek soldiers before battle, and smeared 
onto (or fed to) cocks before a cockfight (Wilson 1953, Gowers 1993). 
The same practice survived in Central Europe for increasing the 
pugnacity of cocks, dogs and ganders (Watts 2007). “Wild forms 
(e.g. Allium scorodoprasum L., Allium ursinum L.) also have similar 
properties and were used in the past” (Badura et al. 2013).

 

“Pliny lists as [garlic’s] natural enemies snakes, scorpions, or 
perhaps all beasts, shrew-mouse bites, poisons like aconite and 
henbane, and dog bites” (Gowers 1993).  Indeed, garlic was 
something of a cure-all in Greek and Roman medicine, being useful 
for “cleaning” the arteries, treatment of gastrointestinal disorders, 
liver disorders, animal bites, seizures, as an antidote to poison, 
etc. (Rivlin 2001). A tendency among physicians to regard garlic as 
a panacea long persisted, e.g., the physician S.F. Geoffroy, writing 
in 1761. By 1829, however, J.F. Osiander introduced a note of 
skepticism by considering garlic as a folk medicine (Hahn 1996).

Garlic also bestowed potency. “According to Pliny, garlic mixed 
with green coriander made a man lecherous … and it has kept its 
reputation for being a food of love” (Gowers 1993). This aspect long 
persisted. Gowers writes that “Chaucer’s Summoner [in Canterbury 
Tales] relished garlic, onions, and leeks, and was as hot-blooded 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

and lecherous as a sparrow” (Gowers 1993).  Garlic was not only 
regarded as enhancing male sexual performance (as in the plays 
of Aristophanes) but was a treatment for male sexual impotence 
(McMahon 1998, in analysis of impotence and virility in the Satyricon 
of Petronius). It could also comprise part of a love charm: “three 
beans and three bulbs of garlic and a few pieces of dried coal and a 
dead frog” placed under the threshold (Ogle 1911, for Magyar folklore). 

Another facet of garlic’s relation to sexuality has provided aficionados 
of Greek drama with amusement. Gowers notes, “When the women 
[in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae] admit … that they have been 
eating garlic to disappoint their husbands, this conceals another 
confession: they are trying to hide the taste of another kind of 
garlic, the phallus” (Gowers 1993, on innuendo in Aristophanes). 
The tradition (if you wish to call it that) continues today. Combining 
‘garlic’ with ‘penis breath’ on Google generates hundreds of records, 
most in the context of intended humor. The frequent mention of 
garlic in the plays of Aristophanes (ca. 446-388 BC) has not escaped 
the attention of Allium specialists, who have noted that uses in 
these plays also include medicinal (strength-giving, or as a plaster 
for treating skin maladies like boils, or as a cure for a problem with 
eyelids). But most references to garlic in Aristophanes focus on 
sex, such as the use by women above to disguise having had sex, 
or contrariwise, use by women to avoid sex, as during the Athenian 
women’s festival of Skira. This festival is background for Aristophanes’ 
Lysistrata, in which women attempt to overthrow male domination. 

Allium is one of dozens of genera documented in lists of materia 
medica over two millennia, from Hippocrates (ca. 460 – ca. 370 BC) 
through 1865 (De Vos 2010).  Allium appeared in 10 of 12 selected 
works containing unambiguous lists of “simples” (plants often used 
individually as a remedy), and some wild or ornamental Allium spp. 
appeared in four such works. Garlic is also prominent in “modern 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

simples – herbs and supplements on Medline Plus” (www.nlm.nih.
gov/medlineplus/herbalmedicine.html). The clear implication is one 
of longevity of use, with implications for future use (De Vos 2010). 
Also germane to materia medica are materials from the 11-14th 
centuries, and now at Cambridge (UK). Originating from the Ben 
Erza synagogue in Old Cairo and mostly in Arabic, these documents 
indicate that garlic was specified for “cleanses the throat” and 
efficacy against intestinal worms, coughs, toothache, diseases of 
the eye, skin diseases, and utility as an emmenagogue (Lev 2007). 

In Anglo-Saxon lore, garlic had efficacy against maladies of ears or 
teeth, gastrointestinal problems, womb disorders, blemishes, boils 
and swellings, and other ailments. Use was often accompanied 
by talismans or prayer (Cockayne 1865). Verbal charms and other 
accompaniments were sometimes prescribed: bloodletting and/or 
cupping for infection of tonsils and the “dry” diseases, holy water and 
miscellaneous prayers against cysts and blemishes (Cockayne 1865, 
1866). An amulet containing garlic was recommended for digestive 
problems. Ingestion of garlic with other herbs, plus making the sign 
of the cross and singing specified hymns was a cure for “elf hiccup” 
(possibly anemia) (Grendon 1909). However, garlic does not seem 
to have been used in a manner that addressed the major causes 
of diseases in leechbooks (flying venom, elf shot, worm). On the 
continent, where the traditions of Galen and doctrine of signatures 
were well established, St. Hildegard of Bingen [1098-1179] gave 
garlic a prominent role in medicine and she concluded that “raw 
garlic was more effective than cooked garlic” (Badura et al. 2013). 
Garlic was held to beget yellow bile (along with phlegm, blood and 
black bile a cornerstone of Galen’s humoral theory) (York 2012).

From 15-16th centuries Serbia is the Chilandar Medical Codex. Garlic 
is referenced twice for liver diseases or haematuria, A. porrum 
(leak) twice for ear pain, and A. ursinum (bear’s garlic) three times 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

as an antidote to snake bite or for haematuria (Jarić et al. 2011). 
In medieval and Renaissance Europe in general, garlic was held 
useful against constipation and other digestive disorders (including 
parasites), toothache, kidney disease, the plague(!), prevention of heat 
stroke, and easing of childbirth (Rivlin 2001). Paracelsus (1493-1541) 
recommended garlic against plague (Hahn 1996). Also in medieval 
and premodern times, garlic was used to diagnose pregnancy by 
“placing a clove of garlic in the vagina: if the woman could taste 
the garlic in her mouth in the morning she was not pregnant, 
since there was free passage through her womb” (Wilson 2000).

Such attitudes on the general efficacy of garlic eventually made 
their way into modern practice, e.g., John Gunn’s Home Book of 
Health (1878) where garlic “was recommended as a diuretic, for 
treatment of infections, as a general tonic and for asthma and other 
pulmonary disorders (Rivlin 2001). In World War I, raw garlic juice 
was applied to wounds as a precaution against sepsis (Watts 2007). 
The best way to ward off colds is to wear around the neck a piece 
of garlic, “an old wives’ tale still current in England” and observed 
as far away as Lebanon (Harfouche 1992). Use of garlic against 
colds, whooping cough and other respiratory ailments persisted well 
into the 20th century in Britain, Ireland and North America (Watts 
2007). In Appalachia, a region where a good deal of old lore from 
European migrants has been documented, garlic, onion and ramp (A. 
tricoccum) have been recorded multiple times for use against high 
blood pressure, respiratory ills and other ailments (Cavender 2006).

In North America, garlic was used to magically prevent disease 
(including infections and smallpox) by being hung over the door, tied 
around the neck, or placed under the pillow (Hatfield 2004). Also 
in American practice, as in Europe, properties of the plant can be 
supplemented with charms or prayers. Some such therapies are not for 
the faint-hearted. One treatment for susto (a psychosomatic condition) 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

calls for “insertion of a piece of garlic into the anus on nine nights; if 
the garlic absorbs, the patient … will experience relief after the ninth 
night. Prayers and candles burning at saints’ images are often part 
of the cure” (Granger 1976, for Spanish-speaking people in southern 
Arizona). “Wild garlic” was used against rabies in Ozark lore, either 
supplementing or supplanting ‘madstone’ (a kind of talisman applied 
to the bite) in humans and animals (Randolph 1933). The belief that 
garlic was effective against rabies can be traced to Europe, as stories 
of cures by garlic were documented in the Balkans (Hahn 1996).

Veterinary

Plant remedies for livestock and poultry parallel uses in folk medicine 
in that garlic (and onion) were regarded as panaceas. However, 
traditional animal health practices are fast disappearing in Italy and 
elsewhere. Pieroni et al. (2004) provided a concise list of citations for 
European field studies and noted more extensive studies elsewhere, 
e.g., for Africa and Asia. In southwestern Serbia, veterinary plant 
uses are remembered but neglected due to availability of modern 
drugs. However, garlic or onion were formerly used against respiratory 
problems in horses or (in a typical conflation of medicine and magic) 
rubbed against the udders of cows to protect against evil eye 
(Pieroni et al. 2011), purportedly a common cause for diminished 
milk production in both women and livestock (Berger 2012).

Garlic was especially used as a vermifuge in folk medical and 
veterinary practice. In Italy, such uses persisted in the second 
half of the 20th century. Garlic and/or other Allium spp. were 
employed against afflictions of the gastrointestinal tract, against 
parasites, kidney and respiratory diseases, skin problems (including 
treatment of wounds), and nervous and locomotor disorders in 
a variety of animals, including chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, 
cattle, horses and donkeys (Viegi et al. 2003). In Catalonia, and 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

in the Balearics, garlic was applied to stings and wounds of both 
humans and livestock (Bonet and Vallès 2007, Carrió et al. 2012). 
In Sardinia, cattle, horses, sheep and chickens were treated with 
garlic for infections and intestinal worms (Bullitta et al. 2007).

European veterinary ethnobotany is not confined to the 
Mediterranean, although studies from more northern countries 
are less abundant. From the Netherlands are instances of garlic 
used in livestock or poultry as a vermicide, an insect repellant, 
for cough, or as a blood cleanser (Van Asseldonk and Beijer 2006). 
Garlic was used for de-worming livestock in Nordic countries (Waller 
et al. 2001). Analogous uses are widespread outside Europe, e.g., 
Alyemeni et al. (2010) for Saudi Arabia; and multiple studies for 
south Asia, e.g., Pande et al. (2007) for Uttaranchal State, India.

Garlic and health, a “reality check” of science versus folklore

Block writes, ““Garlic teases us. Garlic-derived compounds display 
remarkable in vitro activity and simultaneously show low toxicity 
to mammalian cells … testing in rats and other laboratory animals 
reinforces the in vitro studies” (Block 2010). Typical was the 
study of Kendler (1987), on cardiovascular effects, finding “some 
evidence to suggest that use of certain formulations of garlic … 
is accompanied by favorable effects … in normal subjects and in 
patients with atherosclerotic disease … [but] further clinical and 
epidemiological studies are required.”  Somehow, confirmation of 
benefits in humans has been consistently elusive in double-blind 
randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials (Block 2010) although 
some intriguing results are occasionally obtained (Mulrow et al. 2000).

Even in popular media, there were categorical denials that, in spite 
of folklore, garlic will cure anything. Thosteson notes, “It is as hard 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

to suppress the many claims made for it as it is to suppress its odor … 
Garlic has no medicinal value” (Thosteson 1978). Science writings can 
be equally emphatic. Pittler and Ernst claim, “The evidence based 
on rigorous clinical trials of garlic is not convincing” (Pittler and Ernst 
2007, in a review of randomized, double-blind trials on common colds, 
cancer, arterial disease and other ailments). The authors conclude 
that reported effects, even when real, “are small and may not be 
of clinical relevance” (for elevated cholesterol) or “effects are too 
small to be clinically meaningful” (for elevated blood pressure) (Pittler 
and Ernst 2007). Jacobs and Gundling (2009, discussing Josling 2001) 
cited “promising preliminary data” showing “fewer colds (24 vs 64, 
p<0.001), and shorter symptom duration (1.5 vs 5, p<0.001) compared 
with the placebo.”  But Jacobs and Gundling (2009) concluded, “There 
is insufficient evidence to refute or recommend the use of garlic for 
this indication at this time.” Skepticism regarding the many popular 
claims can be summarized in a quote: “The plural of anecdote is not 
data” (Roger Brinner, in Block 2010). Nonetheless, some particular 
aspects of folk belief seem confirmed. Garlic appears to possess 
efficacy against certain nematodes in horses (Peachey et al. 2015).

Culinary history

Ancient

The Greeks were acquainted with garlic, and it was Greeks from whom 
the Romans learned its use (Hahn 1996).  The Romans transmitted 
garlic to Gaul and Germany (Hahn 1996). Garlic was, at least initially, 
a luxury food in Central Europe during the Roman period. Badura et 
al write,”As in the case of onions, garlic was dispersed across Europe 
after the Roman legions moved north, and later spread by the Jews, 
as well as by monks, as food and medicine” (Badura et al. 2013). 

Among the ancient Greeks, garlic was popularly consumed in a 
salted broth, although the soup “was detested by the aristocracy” 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

(Hahn 1996). In Roman cooking, “garlic had plebian overtones” 
(Corbier 1999).  Horace, in his Epodes, wrote a literary tirade 
against garlic breath (Gowers 1993). Nonetheless, there is evidence 
that garlic was routinely used in Roman cooking (Fig. 4).

 

Fig. 4. Garlic bulb with spices, detail: Fragment of a Fresco Panel with 
a Meal Preparation, 100-150 AD, courtesy of The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Medieval

Garlic is mentioned in fragments of a Teutonic cookbook from 
medieval Königsberg (Badura et al. 2013): Bandura et al claim, 
“Certainly, A. sativum was known and used in medieval Poland.”  
There are indications that garlic was used for provisioning crews 
of ships. The garlic found in a medieval Baltic ship wreck “may 
have come from the higher parts of the ship’s stern, where 
the food for the crew was stored” (Badura et al. 2013).

Period literature indicates attitudes. Catalan Franciscan writer 
Francesc Eiximenis (late 14th century) invented a letter from a 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

rich priest to a doctor. The priest complains of loss of appetite but 
describes an exceedingly rich diet. The physician responds by mocking 
the priest’s humble origins, and recommends that the priest eat 
the diet typical of his youth when he was a mere peasant: barley, 
bread, onions, garlic, a little salted meat, and water (Freedman 
2007). Thus we’re informed that garlic was traditionally regarded as 
peasant food in late medieval Catalonia. This sentiment is echoed 
elsewhere for late medieval French cuisine: “Garlic was thought to 
be suitable only for the crude stomachs of peasants” (Flandrin 1999). 
The reputation of garlic as a food for the lower classes persisted into 
the Renaissance. To serve garlic or onions at a banquet “will not … 
be honorable, for besides the stink they bear, they will suggest that 
the diners are rustics” (from a period source, quoted in Albala 2007). 

According to Laurioux, “The most detailed descriptions we have 
of medieval dinners come from satirical and comic literature” 
(Laurioux 1999). Such literature provides clues to the status of 
garlic: “Defeated champions are sautéed in garlic” (and whores 
roasted in a tart sauce, “black friars” fried in fat, perjurers have 
their tongues fried in butter, etc.) (Laurioux 1999). With respect to 
plants: “The least noble plants were those that produced an edible 
bulb underground (such as onions, garlic and shallots)” (Grieco 1999). 
Occasionally we see from period literature that garlic features in 
stereotypical views of other peoples. Kislinger states, “According to 
both Nicetas Choniates, in an account written in 1204, and Eustace 
of Salonika, a Latin would sell his soul for a fillet of beef, or salted 
pork and pureed beans, dressed in a garlic sauce” (Kislinger 1999).

All this putative prejudice against garlic did not deter its occasional 
consumption in haute cuisine. Garlic was used to flavor sturgeon or 
combined with truffles in recipes for Renaissance banquets (Albala 
2007). Culinary aspects merge with the pseudo-medicinal. Four 
Thieves Vinegar (wine vinegar, garlic and herbs, including “wormwood, 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

rue, mint, sage, and rosemary, as well as a variety of additional herbs” 
– a popular condiment with over 43,000 records in Google) wards 
off plague and protects against the spells of rival witches (Renoux 
2005, alas without attribution). According to Hahn (1996), the four 
thieves were apprehended by police in Marseille in the plague year 
1721 while looting the sick and the dead; they told police that garlic 
mixed with wine and vinegar had protected them from infection. 

Premodern and into the modern era

Garlic in cuisine or as a market vegetable is documented in art, but 
especially in oil paintings from the Renaissance forward. Examples 
include Joachim Beuckelaer, Vegetable Vendor, later 16th century; 
Jusepe De Ribera (1591-1652), Old Man with Onions (ragged clothing, a 
garlic bulb in foreground); Baltazar Gomes Figuera, Still Life with Fish 
(mid- to late 17th century – a string of garlic is nearly as prominent as 
the fish); Willem van Mieris, The Greengrocer, 1731 (Fig. 5);  Edouard 
Manet’s Still Life with Bag and Garlic, c. 1862; Vincent Van Gogh, Still 
Life with Bloaters 1887 (the garlic bulb is as prominent as the herring). 
In these paintings, garlic connotes the plebian or the common, as 
in Diego Velasquez, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,1618. 
Garlic can also imply vulgar sexuality, as in Bartolomeo Passerotti’s 
Allegra Compagnia (ca. 1577), wherein garlic is placed prominently 
in the foreground with symbols of vulgarity and intoxication. So too, 
with onions, e.g., Annibale Carracci’s The Bean Eater (c. 1583), in 
which scallions are prominent alongside the graceless diner and his 
dinner. Market and kitchen scenes, often with moralistic themes, 
are informative on the social history of food plants, especially so 
in the realism of late Renaissance and early modern periods. 

 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Fig. 5. The Greengrocer, Willem van Mieris 
(detail). Even this romanticized portrayal

shows affiliation of garlic (upper left) with common folk. Wikimedia.

Of British cooking, “Well-done meat and soggy vegetables were 
well-established norms before 1800, as was an aversion to garlic” 
(Otter 2012). Block’s (2010) concise review of “anti-garlic” 
movements, notes an American opinion of 1796, “Garlicks, tho’ used 
by the French, are better adapted to the uses of medicine than 
cookery….The English also despised Southern European cooking, 
characterizing it as greasy, reeking with garlic, and swimming 
in olive oil. Olive oil and garlic in combination [were], of course, 
almost hilariously dreadful” (Howes and Lalonde 1991). Writing 
of English restaurants, Hahn (1996), noted “Even restaurants that 
offer French cuisine use garlic only in very small quantities.”



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

 

Fig. 6. From a vintage postcard (1921) promoting 
a theatrical production (courtesy Alex Lowe© 
2010, Cardmix, Ltd., www.cardmix.co.uk)

Of French gastronomy, “all the garlic-laden dishes from the south 
of France should remain where they belonged” (Ferguson 1998, 
citing opinion from 1825). These sorts of opinions long persisted in 
British and American cooking (Fig. 6). Of Alliums in general, “Popular 
as these strong flavours are, especially among the southern Latin 
races, it would seem that persons of refined taste have always held 
aloof from them” (in Block 2010, from a British work of 1914). 

The evolution of garlic cuisine in the United States is traced 
by Adema (2009), from its status as un-American and largely 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

associated with ethnics, especially Italians, to its use by 
celebrity chefs (Julia Childs and others), general acceptance, 
and popularity. Gilroy, California, bills itself as the Garlic Capitol 
of the World, and holds an annual festival with delicacies, 
tourism and even a Garlic Queen pageant (Adema 2009).    

Conclusions

This review and others (Dugan 2008, 2015b) document folktale 
types and motifs in which plants or fungi are intrinsic, but folklore 
specific to these organisms better conforms to alternative categories, 
independent of folkloristic classifications. There is no tale type, nor 
even a specific motif, for garlic lore per se. Although folk taxonomy 
of plants and animals parallels to considerable extent scientific 
classification (Berlin et al. 1973), and although folktales about animals 
comprise one of the primary categories for tale types, there are no 
analogous folktale categories for plants or fungi (Aarne 1961, Uther 
2004). Tale types AT 307, AT 363 and AT 365A specify vampires, but 
aversion of these creatures to garlic is not recorded in Aarne (1961) 
or Uther (2004). Garlic has a higher profile in Thompson’s (1955-1958) 
index of folk motifs, but  motif-index D2071 Evil Eye (Thompson 1955-
1958) does not directly address garlic’s apotropaic function, although 
other apotropaic measures are specified, such as swinging a cat over 
a child’s cradle (D2071.1.2). Folkloristics has its own taxonomy, rarely 
parallel to biological taxonomy of protagonists or organisms comprising 
subject matter of folkways. Tales involving garlic are dispersed 
amongst multiple tale types and motif numbers, but folkways for 
garlic can be assigned to alternative categories: apotropaism, provision 
of power or potency, or association with things or people plebian, 
common or despised. All these aspects address content in tales, 
motifs and beliefs and practices for magic. Theoretical frameworks 
such as distinctions between emic and etic (Dundes 1962) are often 
implicit but have not been analyzed here, and nor are attempts 
made to analyze structure (morphology) sensu Propp (1968).



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Like the plant itself, lore about garlic propagated northward from 
the Mediterranean and Balkans. However, lore from southern cultures 
appears not to have co-migrated to the north with the plant, but to 
have lagged. For example, the term ‘evil eye’ (against which garlic was 
so extensively employed in Balkan and Mediterranean environs) does 
not seem to occur in leechcraft (Cockayne 1864, 1865, 1866, Grendon 
1909, Rohde 1922, Pollington 2000). Scholarly works indicate the 
evil eye only from much later periods, often not until 19th century, 
in the British Isles and Finland (Dundes 1992). Likewise, vampire 
lore caught up to, rather than accompanied, distribution of garlic 
germplasm. Although garlic could be used against other undesirable 
supernatural creatures in early Anglo-Saxon lore, use against creatures 
specifically denoted as resurrected from the grave and craving human 
blood was absent in published literature until the 19th century. 

No instances of garlic used against elf shot, flying venom or worm, 
primary causes of disease in Anglo-Saxon leechcraft (Rohde 1922), 
could be located. Although worm could cause ‘tooth wark’ against 
which garlic was sometimes used, worm was not mentioned in 
the instance in which garlic as a therapy was specified (Cockayne 
1865). In each case (elf shot, flying venom, worm) numerous 
other plants comprised therapies (often along with charms or 
prayers). Garlic was, however, indicated as germane to the 
humoral theory and doctrine of signatures as noted above.

Malign beings against which garlic was used in leechcraft were 
variously termed mares, hags, witches, succubi, elves, daemons or 
devils, but no instances denoting something specifically vampire-like 
(blood-feeding creatures from the grave) were located in leechbooks. 
It would seem that the blood-feeding vampire arrived in Britain 
(and probably northern Europe in general) only subsequent to the 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

time of the leechbooks, with the cliché of deterrence by garlic 
established in Britain only in late Victorian times. From the abundance 
and ubiquity of vampire lore (including their aversion to garlic) in 
the Balkans and proximate countries in late 19th century folklore 
collections, it seems that this lore was long established there.

The termination of Roman control in Britain, Gaul, and Central 
Europe was accompanied by diminution of archaeobotanical evidence 
for garlic in those areas. One might tentatively posit a hiatus in 
cultivation of garlic (and perhaps horticulture in general) in Northern 
Europe during the Migration Period, but evidence for horticulture 
(including for garlic) is stronger in subsequent times, and southern 
folk themes eventually infused northwards along with Christianization. 
Simultaneously, medical lore in Northern Europe became less 
dominated by Anglo-Saxon concepts (elf shot, flying venom, etc.) 
and more by the doctrine of signatures, theory of humors, and 
other components from Galen and the Hippocratic tradition. Garlic 
continued to be used “medicinally” (including with components of 
magic, especially accompaniments of prayer or verbal charms).

Throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, and indeed in regions 
of the Americas, it is readily apparent that for centuries magical, 
culinary and medicinal aspects of garlic (and other plants) remained 
merged rather than distinct. The contemporary concept of 
nutraceutical does not quite approach this integrative (it would not 
be too biased to say confounding) perspective of the premodern 
mind. Magic was pervasive. That the world is permeated by unseen 
and often malign forces that can be deterred, coerced or placated 
by magical means was a common outlook prior to (and for many, 
well past) the Enlightenment (Wilson 2000, Swan 2005). Belief in 
witches and vampires in the Balkans, for example, “survived till the 
end of the nineteenth century, and even some traces … remained 
in the first decades of the twentieth” (Vukanović 1989a). Vukanović 



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

writes, “Apotropaic customs and rites …are rooted in the remote 
and primitive past … having been preserved …up to the present 
day” (Vukanović 1989b). Similar conservatism applied elsewhere in 
Eastern Europe (Worobec 1995). Even in Britain, people continued to 
believe in witchcraft as a cause of illness well into the nineteenth 
century, and traditional healers (“cunning-folk”) were employed in 
administering herbal cures augmented with magic (Davies 1999).  

Such conservatism was not confined to Europe. About life in early 
twentieth century Ozarks, Randolph wrote: “The old belief in 
witchcraft is rapidly dying out …  Many of the old folks, however, 
still believe that certain women can call up the Devil” (Randolph 
1922, with incidents of putative witches and witchcraft). Analogous, 
intriguing research exists for the southern Appalachians (Gainer 
2008). More disturbing than intriguing are Hand’s (1983) accounts, 
from informants, of mob burnings of suspected witches in Utah. 

Persistence of the belief that garlic possesses special properties should 
come as no surprise. Evidence-based studies do not seem to have 
much diminished the common perception that garlic cures or wards off 
respiratory infections, acts as an aphrodisiac, or even deters cancer 
and coronary diseases. (‘Garlic’ + ‘natural cure’ generates 360,000 
records on Google.) I am well acquainted with several persons who 
ingest garlic regularly because they believe it is effective against 
common maladies. However, other beliefs have proven less resistant 
to modernity. Vampires that wear lipstick and werewolves that drive 
cars now abound in novels and films, but I am not acquainted with 
anyone who hangs garlic over their door, window or chimney, or wears 
it as an amulet. Perceptions of garlic can be viewed as exemplars of 
change: simultaneously conservative and adaptive, with apotropaic 
remnants in folk medicine and expanded horizons in cuisine.



< Dugan,Frank M. “Seldom Just Food: Garlic in Magic and Medicine in European and Mediterranean 
Traditions.” Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 5:1 (2016): n. pag.> © American Folklore Society 2016

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Jade D’Alpoim Guedes, Kim Hummer, and 
Barbara Hellier for constructive comments on the manuscript.

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