THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Sassafras

Lisa Karen Miller

“Take a large spoonful of sassafras root ground to a powder and put into a pint of boiling water, stirring until it is like a fine jelly; then put wine and sugar to it and lemon, if it will agree. A most refreshing drink sold liberally about the streets and said to lift the spirits and ease the mind of suspicion, all for a halfpenny piece.”

Mother Eve’s Secrets

          Lots of people in Kentucky, including myself, remember taking sassafras tea as a spring tonic.  The root’s bark was steeped to treat “over-fatness.” The Cherokee used it to purify the blood and treat skin complaints and rheumatism.  One folk saying was:

“In the spring of the year when the blood is too thick,

There is nothing so fine as a sassafras stick.

It tones up the liver and strengthens the heart,

And to the whole system new life doth impart.”

          Called the Mitten Tree, sassafras has four distinct leaf patterns, two of which resemble a left and right mitten. The third has an elliptical shape, and the fourth is three-fingered. Science has not discovered a reason for this. 

          Folklore has, though.

          A boy named Sassafras fell in love with a girl, but she never even noticed him.  He went to the medicine man and asked for help.  He was given a potion and told to drink it at bed time.  “When you wake up you will have something so special she will have to notice you.”

          Upon awakening, Sassafras had a second thumb growing out of the other side of each hand. Thinking she will surely be impressed, he ran to the village to show off his new thumbs, but everyone laughed, including the girl.

          The medicine man gave him another potion. This time when he woke up he had no thumbs. Again, everyone laughed.

          Desperate, he returned to the medicine man, whom he by then suspected of malpractice. “Sorry, son, I have nothing else for you.”

          Sassafras ran to the woods and cried himself to sleep under a tree.  It was the deepest sleep of all.  There on the forest floor, he died of a broken heart.

           Soon after, a new sapling sprang up with four different leaves – one (left and right), no thumb, and two thumbs.  So the tree was named in his honor.       

          The berries of the tree are dark blue, and sit on cherry-red “goblets.” Root beer was originally made from the sassafras root. It’s another of those flavors you either love or hate.

          I myself can’t bear it.   Too many spring tonics, I reckon.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller