„Iss Lauch im Frühling und Bärlauch im Mai, dann haben alle Ärzte frei.“
[Deutscher Volksmund]
"Eat leeks in spring and wild garlic in May, and all the doctors will have the day off."
[Folk saying]
Wild garlic is a perennial, herbaceous bulbous plant that grows to a height of twenty to sixty centimetres. Depending on the region, the plant is also known as witch's onion and bear's garlic. Wild garlic shoots in early spring. Sometimes its tender leaves break out of the snow as early as March. The plant forms several lance-like leaf stalks one after the other, which turn into broad, elliptical-lanceolate leaf blades after a few centimetres. The flowering period lasts from April to May. The flower stalk opens into a strongly fragrant pseudo umbel with up to twenty white-flowered hermaphrodite flowers. The capsule fruit contains a few black seeds. There is a danger of confusion with the lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis), which looks similar in its vegetative phase but is highly poisonous. An unmistakable criterion for distinguishing between the two, however, is the strong smell of leeks.
The characteristic smell of the plant already reveals its relationship to kitchen onions and garlic.
And just like these, it is said to have an effect against evil spirits and other sinister influences.
The reason for this will be its peculiar odeur. The bad breath after eating it, however, is also said to unsettle representatives of the opposite sex.
In the following, wild garlic will be considered together with the other representatives of the Allium genus. Every child knows that garlic helps against vampires.
In popular belief, wild garlic and leek is used apotropaically.
An apotropaion is a magical object or remedy that is supposed to be effective against evil forces.
Wild garlic and leek were used as amulets and magic remedies, on the other hand, they were hung in trees in earlier times to protect leaves and fruit from being eaten by caterpillars and birds. An understandable action even from today's rational point of view, when one thinks of its special bouquet, which certainly deters a large number of animals.
The Germanic tribes held the wild garlic in high esteem, which is probably due not least to the fact that the plant was an indispensable source of vitamins and food against deficiency symptoms during the cold and lightless Nordic winter.
Sometimes even heroes of Germanic poetry were dubbed with it as a term of honour:
"So was Sigurd with the sons of Giuki, / As noble leek rises above stalks, / As high the stag towers above hares and foxes, / And glowing red gold shines above grey silver."
In the song manuscript of the Edda, the leek is mentioned several times as the most valuable of the plants that grew as the first crop on earth after the frost giants were deprived of power and thawed out.
The veneration of our ancestors for the plant went so far that a rune was even associated with it.
The rune Laguz (ᛚ), the twenty-first rune of the Elder Futhark, is quite ambiguous in its meaning.
Besides water and lake, leek is also mentioned as a possible translation variant.
The experiential knowledge that people gathered in connection with the deterrent smell and the health value of the plant will undoubtedly also have radiated to its use as a magical armoury.
According to the motto: What helps against malnutrition and caterpillars cannot be ineffective against ghosts. And so three bulbs of wild garlic were placed in the cradle of newborns to prevent demonic beings from exchanging the children for changelings.
When the grain was brought in, wild garlic and leeks were attached to the first sheaves in the hope that this would protect the crop from being bewitched.
And the cattle were protected against the dreaded bewitching by feeding, rubbing and dressing them in every conceivable way with onions and other types of leek.
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