Plants

Girls usually pick up the laurel in order to be loved and desired by the lads, but the laurel is picked up also by old women, and not exactly in orthodox purposes.
Of all the plants sought for their special qualities, the laurel is the real magic plant, that shouldn't miss in any witchcraft. Being extremely dangerous, when picking up the laurel much accuracy is required. "The magic virtues of the laurel explains, to an extent, it odd fate. The laurel root may have, indeed, a direct influence upon the vital forces of man or nature: it has the power to marry the maids, to bring luck in love matters and fertility in a marriage; can increase the milk amount of the cows; brings a positive influence to the business; brings wealth, welfare, harmony. The magic features of the laurel can be thus turned against a person. For instance it can stop a girl from being called to the dance by the lads of the village or cause the sickness or madness of an enemy.

Besides its magic characteristics, the laurel has also healing virtues. But for this usage, also, it has to be pulled out of the soil in the same ritual.
The propitious time for picking up the laurel is the interval between Easter and the Celebration of the Raising to Heaven. The girls accompanied and adviced by old women, go, loaded with gifs -especially good food- to the place that they marked during the day, so that they wouldn't have to look for it in the dark. The girls are not allowed to speak to each other, until they reach the place where the plant is, or look back, for the efficiency of the plant not to disappear. Around the laurel the girls imitated the lover's gestures, they stroke each other, hug, and even kiss.
If the laurel is picked up for marriage, a magic song is sung:
"Laurel, good lady,
Wed me this month,
If not this, the other one,
For me not to remain unmarried,
As the hair has wore out under the pins,
The fingers under the rings,
And the neck under the beads."
In the Lapus the laurel is picked "for marriage" in the Easter night or in the next morning before sunrise. The girls put near the laurel painted eggs, Easter cake, wine, boiled ham, sponge cake, and other delicious cookings: "It is picked first thing in the morning, before sunrise. After they had put the wine and the Easter cake, the girls would start dancing and behaving affectionately with each other and sing:
" Laurel, laurel, good sister,
It is you that I honour,
With Easter cake and wine,
Let me be the one you honour,
To be clean and beautiful,
Beloved to the lads,
Special among girls and boys."
The girls who would pick the laurel for love, would take off all their clothes and stroke their skin with laurel.
The laurel is picked in diverse purposes and the gestures depend on these purposes. For example, a woman who picks laurel for saving her husband from the drinking vice, says it for many reasons: first, unpaid, the laurel won't set its gift free; then, taken out of the soil and being discontent with the presents it's offered, it becomes threatening. There is the risk of hearing it by night, calling for those who had picked it and asking them to take it back there, threatening the one who doesn't obey.
Generally, there are two charm wordings for the laurel, one for good intentions and one for bad intentions. In most of the variants the laurel needs to be praised, as in the variant of Ungureni:
"Good morning lady Empress,
The most beautiful and most special,
The most good-hearted in the world,
Your name is best known,
I woke up in the morning,
And I washed my face,
And then I ran to you,
Upon the fresh dew,
Untaken for love.
I scattered the dew,
I took the love,
You are the flower of the flowers,
In the masters' garden,
And the beloved of all lads,
And you'll make me too,
Be honourable like you.
A desire makes me lust
And I came here in the dusk,
For you to help me,
To make me be happy."

It must be dug up carefully. In its place the presents are left. It is lain among the food at home and then it must be put among the flowers in the garden for nine days. After nine days it is carried with joy at the breast.
When the laurel is used with bad intentions, you pick it up in the afternoon: "You go towards it, angry, cursing and swearing at it. You beat it, abuse it, dig it and tread upon it. You put in its place money and bad things. You take it home, but not inside, God forbid ! But you take it into the toilet and keep it in there for nine days. After that you take it out, fight it, beat it, chop it and take it to the enemies so that they quarrel too. When you put excrements in its place, in the woods you say:
"Just how the excrements stink
May you stink for everyone.
May you be reprimanded by everyone,
No one to see you,
No one to hear you,
May the girls stink to the boys,
And the wives to their husbands."
(we respect the request of the infromer to keep his name out of this;as the conditions of his providing us the information)

Conveying the recipe of the laurel in wicked purposes is a sin. The harming threatening of the laurel is so strong, that if it is used for innocent people its effects can turn not only over the one who picked it but, also over the one who adviced him-an uninitiated-and told him the formula.
It is said in Eliade's book "The Cult of Laurel in Romania" that for picking up the laurel, a lad may go with a girl or with a group of people, without mentioning the master." It is said that the laurel is beaten with a stick, dragged etc.; the kicks and grotesque gestures indispensable for the witchcraft are exchanged among the members of the group; as for the laurel, it remains respected and terrible; no one, as far we know, dares to touch it but with worship. "This is an information found nowhere else.
But the laurel, either for "good" or "bad" purposes is dug up and brought home. The effects of this magic presence are obvious if they are negative. "In our village, somebody put once a laurel in a man's well just before a wedding and afterwards such a fight and row came out of it that the people weren't far from killing each other" or " the laurel is put in the liquor drunk by the enemies at wakes and then you get rid of them for sure". This can be explained scientifically by the fact that the laurel is a poisoning weed.

Other magic plants, but bearing much less powers than the laurel, are the chelidomium majus, the chicory, the lovage, the "big weed" etc. These, also depending to the charm they serve., have their own time of picking.
Also by night the manna of the milk is taken from the cows. The old women walk with a stick in which they gather the goodness of the milk or "with the shirt reversed, with a sickle in hand some old women go to the ninth boundary. They hit the stone with the stickle and say:
"Come milk, with the wind,
Through the earth,
The cow will roar,
And if it doesn't come,
The cow will cleave,
And if it doesn't leave,
The cow will cleave,
Why do you moo, cow,
Why do you roar?
'How could I not moo
Or roar,
Since I can't at all stay,
Cause my manna was taken away".
"There is one single exception in the Romanians' beliefs who recommends an

action after sunset. It is the custom of beginning the sowing in the evening when the birds fall asleep and of casting the first seed with the eyes closed so that the birds can't see the seeds and not to eat the crop."
We admit that the night time generally appears as dangerous for every action out of doors. During the night "the hags" walk naked in the cemetery and woods; the ghosts haunt the places; the demons walk and all of them are intending to harm. "During the night it seems like - according to the magic thinking - the world is somehow deserted by the good genies and left on the hands of the evil powers."