These two illustrations make it apparent that Hildegard has a licit magic of her own which is every whit as superstitious as the magic art which she condemns. It is evident that she accepts not only marvelous and occult virtues of natural substances such as herbs and gems, but also the power of words and incantations, and rites and ceremonies of a most decidedly magical character. In the second passage this procedure assumed a Christian character, but the plucking and drying of the herbs in the first passage perhaps preserves the flavor of primitive Teutonic or Celtic paganism. Nor is such superstitious procedure resorted to merely against magic, to whose operations it forms a sort of homeopathic counterpart. It is also employed for ordinary medicinal purposes, and is a characteristic feature of Hildegard’s conception of nature and whole mental attitude. This we may further illustrate by running through the books of the _Subtilitates_. [Sidenote: Use of herbs.] Except for passages connecting the devil with certain herbs which we have already noted, Hildegard’s discussion of vegetation is for the most part limited to medicinal properties of herbs, which are effective without the addition of fantastic ceremonial. Sometimes nevertheless the herbs are either prepared or administered in a rather bizarre fashion. Insanity may be alleviated, we are told, by shaving the patient’s head and washing it in the hot water in which _agrimonia_ has been boiled, while the hot herbs themselves are bound in a cloth first over his heart and then upon his forehead and temples.[397] An unguent beneficial alike for digestive and mental disorders is made of the bark, leaves, and bits of the green wood of the fir-tree, combined with saliva to half their weight. This mess is to be boiled in water until it becomes thick, then butter is to be added, and the whole strained through a cloth.[398] The mandragora root should first be worn bound between the breast and navel for three days and three nights, then divided in halves and these bound on the thighs for three days and three nights. Finally the left half of the root, which resembles the human figure, should be pulverized, camphor added to it, and eaten.[399] If a man is always sad and in the dumps, after purifying the mandragora root in a fountain, let him take it to bed with him, hold it so that it will be warmed by the heat of his body, and say, “God, who madest man from the dust of the earth without grief, I now place next me that earth which has never transgressed”--Hildegard has already stated that the mandragora is composed “of that earth of which Adam was created”--“in order that my clay may feel that peace just as Thou didst create it.” That the prayer or incantation is more essential than the virtue of the mandragora in this operation, is indicated by the statement that shoots of beech, cedar, or aspen may be used instead of the mandragora. [Sidenote: Marvelous virtues of gems.]