Our ancestors had no schools of magic. They had to master herbology, protection from evil spells, and other magical arts on their own in order to survive in a world full of dangers.

This book tells about the magical ideas of the Slavs and brings together the entire complex of their beliefs about plants. To call for rain, bewitch a loved one, calm a restless dead person - there were remedies for every occasion. Alexandra Barkova weaves stories about how spells found reflection in the works of Pushkin, and rituals - in modern psychotherapy into a fascinating narrative about what people believed in, what they feared, and how they saw the world in the past. And she convincingly proves that, thanks to the experience accumulated over generations, they understood much more than they could know.