Found in the Hermetikon archive

Pine

Pinus sylvestris

Pine appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.

Risk: moderate
Books: 30
Contexts: 4
Mentions: 92

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: pine
Latin name: Pinus sylvestris(ambiguous)
Identity note: Archive references may concern tree, resin, incense, coffin wood, or symbolic evergreen material.

Safety

moderate

Pine oils and resins can irritate; species and preparation matter.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

Kew POWO: Pine oils and resins can irritate; species and preparation matter.

Aliases

pinepine resinpine treePinus sylvestris

Pine in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Pine (Pinus sylvestris) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are medicine, ritual uses, and folk magic. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Medicine

high

Hill's pine evidence centers on resin: Burgundy pitch is described as resin of the wild pine tree, essentially turpentine boiled toward pitch or resin.

The Family Herbal | John Hill | 1755

Page 320

Folk magic

high

Spence's Japanese folklore entry makes the pine tree a good-fortune and marriage token, also associating it with longevity.

Encyclopaedia of Occultism | Lewis Spence | 1920

Page 283

Ritual

high

Hastings records a Navaho storm instrument rule: a sacred groaning stick may be made only from pine wood struck by lightning.

Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics | James Hastings | 1918

Page 587

Preparations and ritual uses

Resin and pitch

high

Hill describes wild pine resin processed into Burgundy pitch, with longer boiling yielding resin.

The Family Herbal | John Hill | 1755

Page 320

May-pole

medium

Frazer records a stripped spruce-pine tree set up as a May-pole and ornamented with leaves, flowers, cloth slips, gilt eggshells, and a top banner.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1906

CHAPTER X RELICS OF TREE-WORSHIP IN MODERN EUROPE

Pine Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Astrology

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: A Book of Myths.

Matched as pine tree; high confidence.

Folk magic

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Metamorphoses (Books VIII-XV).

Matched as pine tree; high confidence.

Preparation

6 passages across 6 books; strongest source: Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

Matched as pine tree; high confidence.

Ritual

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as pine tree; high confidence.

Pine Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper

1653

"..., Olibanum, Opium, Opopanax, Pice-bitumen, Pitch of the Cedar of Greece, Liquid and dry Rozins of Fir-tree, Larch-tree, Pine tree, Pine-fruit, Mastich. Venice and Cyprus Turpentine. Sugar, white, red, and Christaline, or Sugar Candy white and red, Sagapen, Juniper, Gum, Sanguis Draconis, Sarcocolla, Scamony, Styrax, Liquid and Calamitis, Tacha, Mahacca, Tartar, Frankincense, Olibanum, Tragaganth, Birdlime.* *Culpeper.*] That my country may receive more benefit than ever the college of Physicians intended them from these, I shall treat of them severally. - 1. Of t..."

Chapter 55Open in Reader

Ritualalias: pine treehigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...eats out of the ends of the lower, and is catched as it runs from them. Burgundy pitch is made of the resin of the wild pine tree, which is common turpentine boiled in water to a certain consistence, if they boil it longer, it would be resin, for the common resin is only this turpentine boiled to a hardness. ### The AMMONIACUM PLANT. *Ammoniacum.* A TALL plant, native of the East, and very imperfectly described to us. What we hear of it is, that it grows on the sides of hills, and is five or six feet high; the stalk is hollow and striated, and painted with variou..."

Page 320Open in Reader

Preparationalias: pine treehigh confidence

Encyclopaedia of Occultism

Lewis Spence

1920

"...w is one of the most eerie of trees, the willow-spirit often becoming a beautiful maiden and wedding a human lover. The pine tree brings good fortune, especially in the matter of happy marriages. It is also a token of longevity. Tree spirits can sometimes be inimical to man and it is recorded of one that to stay its disturbing wanderings it was necessary to cut it down, when from the stump flowed a stream of blood. The element of Fire figures largely in the Japanese world of marvels. It is worshipped in connection with the rites of the Sun-goddess and even the ki..."

Page 283Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: pine treehigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1890

"... jump over them. But the chief event of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of a straight and tall spruce-pine tree, stripped of its branches. â€œAt times hoops and at others pieces of wood, placed crosswise, are attached to it at intervals; whilst at others it is provided with bows, representing so to say, a man with his arms akimbo. From top to bottom not only the â€˜Maj StÄƒngâ€™ (May-pole) itself, but the hoops, bows, etc. are ornamented with leaves, [pg 079] flowers, slips of various cloth, gilt egg-shells, etc.; and on the top of it is a large..."

Â§ 5.â€”Tree-worship in antiquity.Open in Reader

Archive mentionalias: pine treemedium confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1906

"... jump over them. But the chief event of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of a straight and tall spruce-pine tree, stripped of its branches. â€œAt times hoops and at others pieces of wood, placed cross-wise, are attached to it at intervals; whilst at others it is provided with bows, representing, so to say, a man with his arms akimbo. From top to bottom not only the â€˜Maj StÄƒngâ€™ (May-pole) itself, but the hoops, bows, etc., are ornamented with leaves, flowers, slips of various cloth, gilt egg-shells, etc.; and on the top of it is a large vane,..."

CHAPTER X RELICS OF TREE-WORSHIP IN MODERN EUROPEOpen in Reader

Archive mentionalias: pine treemedium confidence

Books Mentioning Pine

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

30 books

A Book of Myths

Andrew Lang | 1889

pine treepine

17 mentions

Argonautica

Apollonius Rhodius | 250

pine

7 mentions

Metamorphoses (Books VIII-XV)

Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) | 8

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Pine in Historical Sources

Medicine

Folk magic

Ritual

Preparations and ritual uses

Resin and pitch

May-pole

Pine Archive Contexts

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Ritual

Pine Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

The Family Herbal

Encyclopaedia of Occultism

The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Pine