Borage for Courage?

Curmudgeonly Comments on a Joyful Plant

The starry flowers of Borage are the blue of the sky just before dawn. Their medicine brings a brightening of the spirit and a rush of vitality. Encountering Borage it is easy to understand why so many associate the herb with courage — and especially with the word’s deeper meaning of heartful presence.

And . . . there are some misconceptions about the ethnobotany and history of the herb that feel important to clear up — and there is an important safety issue to address.

In my early years as an herbalist, I heard repeatedly that Borage was an herb used by “Celtic warriors” to bolster their courage in battle. There seem to be a few problems with this claim.

The first trouble we run into is with the word “Celtic.” “Celtic” means different things to different people. For some people it refers to a group of languages that includes the Gaelic languages — Irish, Scotts Gaelic, and Manx; the Brythonic languages — Welsh, Cornish, and Breton; Galatian; and a number of extinct languages in continental Europe. For others it refers to a material culture, an art style, found among varied cultures from the Danube to the west coast of Ireland. To others still it refers to a group of insular European cultures who shared common language, common material culture, and common ancestors. And in modern parlance it tends to be used to refer to all things Irish, Scottish, and Welsh (and sometimes all things Cornish or Breton, and very occasionally certain elements of English culture. ) So it is a very ambiguous word, and one academia is moving away from. I personally am not as bothered by the word as many people I know are, but I do think it is important to be clear what we mean when we are using it. (I do have a very strong aversion to the term “British Isles.” But I tend not to make a big deal of it when it comes up in conversation.)

So a common problem in discussions of plant lore among both herbalists and Pagans is that people will very often come across a reference to “Druids” or “Celts” working with a plant and assume this is referring to people in pre-Christian Ireland or Scotland or Wales — but it almost invariably refers to practices Romans observed in Gaul. Some of these practices may well have also existed in the countries most people think of when they hear the word “Celtic,” but many most definitely did not until well after colonization: for example, Mistletoe was a very late arrival in Ireland, coming as an invasive species well after the arrival of Christianity, and the current Mistletoe population seems to mostly have escaped from the Victorian gardens of English and Anglo-Irish aristocrats. So, in recent years I have assumed that the idea of “Borage for courage” fell into this category.

However, so far I have not even been able to find reputable sources for the idea of Gaulish warriors using Borage in battle. Nor, for that matter, have I found reputable evidence for its use in this way among Roman soldiers in Gaul. As always, I would be happy to be proven wrong.

There is however, ample evidence that Borage was popular in classical Rome as a medicine for “gladdening the heart” — and it was probably frequently used in cordials throughout Europe in later times for the same purpose. The oldest reference to “Borage for courage” that I have come across is from the sixteenth century English herbalist John Gerard who may have been mistranslating a Latin saying about Borage bringing joy. (“Gaudia” was the word Gerard translated as “courage.”)

The common claim that the word Borage is derived from a “Celtic” word meaning “courage” also seems to be false. “Borage” is derived from the Latin “borra” — “rough hair,” a reference to the plant’s hairy foliage.

None of this means that Borage will not bolster courage. Nor does it mean no ancient people worked with Borage this way — it just means that the claims about well established traditions that regarded Borage as an herb for warriors are highly questionable.

So with all of that out of the way, we come to an even more contentious question: the question of the safety of working with Borage.

We will start with the undisputed facts: Borage leaves and flowers contain both saturated and unsaturated pyrrolizodine alkalods (PA’s) — some of the most controversial constituents in modern herbalism.

At this point, it seems likely that saturated PA’s are fairly safe for human consumption — saturated molecules in general tend to be less reactive than their unsaturated counterparts. For this reason I have no problem working with herbs like Echinacea and Coltsfoot. Unsaturated PA’s are another matter.

There are abundant and well documented cases of the unsaturated PA’s in species of the Senecio genus being implicated in veno-occlusive liver disease. Basically this means they damage the blood vessels of the liver. This kind of damage seems to be cumulative, is primarily diagnosed through biopsy, and is asymptomatic until it causes irreversible damage leading to tissue death (due to lost blood supply) and, in some cases, liver failure. None of the herbs that we think of as protecting the liver are effective in preventing or reversing this damage.

There are case reports of similar damage associated with both the roots and leaves of multiple species of Comfrey. These reports are more widely disputed, but are convincing enough to me that I personally choose not to take Comfrey internally or recommend Comfrey to my clients. Many herbalists I respect do work with Comfrey internally, however.

There are to my knowledge, no case reports of liver damage from Borage. However, since this particular form of liver damage is so hard to diagnose, that does not mean such damage does not occur. For this reason I personally choose to ingest Borage only at drop dose — 1-5 drops of the tincture per dose — and only for short periods of time. I have been known to munch on the flowers or throw them in salads as well, but I can’t in good conscience suggest that you do the same.

I will be teaching online about herbs for courage on January 7 — https://otherworldwell.com/blogs/news/take-heart-herbs-for-courage — and about herbs and the liver on January 21 — https://otherworldwell.com/blogs/news/liver-herbs-for-all-seasons

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image by FrancoisMignard

via Wikimedia Commons