White Willow Bark cut (Salix alba)

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Moon work: burn willow bark with sandalwood on the full moon, or add it to incense for lunar and divinatory work.
• Love: carry a piece of bark in a sachet, or tie knots in willow withies to bind a love charm.
• Protection: keep willow in the home to guard against harm, in keeping with its role as a tree of the waters.
• Tools: willow is a traditional wood for wands and for binding the brush of a besom.

A Simple Working

• On the night of the full moon, light a white or silver candle.
• Mix a teaspoon of willow bark with a teaspoon of sandalwood powder.
• Burn a pinch on charcoal.
• Sit with your tarot cards or scrying bowl and breathe the smoke.
• Ask your question aloud and read.
• Leave the candle to burn down.

Pairs Well With

• Yellow sandalwood, a fellow Moon-ruled wood for lunar incense.
• Mugwort, for divination and dreams.
• Rose petals, for love sachets.
• A white chime candle, for moon work.

What You Receive

Cut dried white willow bark, available in 1 oz, 2 oz and 1 lb.

Origin & Lore

Salix alba is a large willow of European and western Asian riverbanks. Its flexible young shoots, or withies, were woven into baskets, fences and fish traps, and its bark was traditionally used in teas against fever and pain.

Homer placed willows at the edge of the underworld: when Odysseus sails to the land of the dead, he finds the groves of Persephone, tall poplars and willows that shed their fruit.

In the Irish ogham alphabet, the letter S is saille, the willow. Willow has long been planted beside water and in churchyards, and is tied in folklore to grief, the moon and the dead.