Coltsfoot Leaf (Tussilago farfara)

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Love sachet: add the leaf to love and attraction pouches for a gentle, steady pull.
• Peace: scatter or burn a little in a home where tempers have been running high.
• Visions: burn the dried leaf as an incense when seeking visions or working with a scrying bowl.

A Simple Working

• Fill a dark bowl with water and set it on a table in a dim room.
• Light a white candle so its light falls across the water.
• Burn a pinch of coltsfoot on a charcoal disc beside the bowl.
• Breathe slowly as the smoke rises and settle your attention on the water.
• Ask your question once, then watch the surface without forcing images.
• Write down anything you see or sense before extinguishing the candle.

Pairs Well With

• Mugwort, for scrying and visionary work.
• Rose petals, for love sachets.
• Lavender, for peace in the home.
• Charcoal discs, for burning herbs as incense.

What You Receive

Cut and dried coltsfoot leaf, available in 1 oz, 2 oz and 1 lb.

Origin & Lore

Tussilago farfara is a low perennial of Europe and Asia that colonises banks, roadsides and broken ground. Its leaves were traditionally brewed or smoked for the chest, and they formed the base of British herbal tobacco for generations. The genus name means cough dispeller.

Coltsfoot flowers push up through bare, cold ground weeks before a single leaf appears, which earned the plant the old name son-before-the-father.

In France, the painted coltsfoot flower was once used as a sign over the doors of apothecaries’ shops. Its many animal-foot names, from colt’s foot to bull’s foot and ass’s foot, all come from the hoof-like outline of the leaf.