Also called bay leaf manifestation, laurel wish, daphnomancy
Write a wish on a dried bay leaf and burn it so the smoke carries it off. The writing-and-burning form is modern; reading burning laurel for omens goes back to ancient Greece and Rome.
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Take care: Burn only one leaf at a time in a fireproof bowl with good ventilation; bay leaves flare quickly. Keep away from smoke alarms and children. Use culinary bay (Laurus nobilis), not cherry laurel or mountain laurel, which are toxic.
Laurel leaves or branches were thrown on a fire and the sound read as an answer. Loud crackling was favourable and silence was not. The laurel was sacred to Apollo, god of prophecy.
Uses: laurel branch, fire
Before giving oracles the Pythia purified herself, and her chamber was fumigated with burning laurel leaves and barley meal while she held a laurel branch. Popular claims that she chewed laurel are not supported by the main sources.
Uses: laurel, barley meal
Young women pinned bay leaves to their pillows on St Valentine's Eve to dream of a future husband. Here the bay is slept on, not burned.
Uses: five bay leaves, pins
Bay laurel was the sacred tree of Apollo. Greek myth tells how the nymph Daphne turned into a laurel to escape him, and victors at the Pythian Games were crowned with it. At Delphi, according to classical sources summarised by historians, the Pythia's chamber was fumigated with burning laurel before she prophesied. Greeks and Romans also practised daphnomancy, reading omens in how laurel crackled on a fire, and Roman writers linked the withering of a sacred laurel grove to the death of Nero in AD 68.
The modern custom of writing a wish on a bay leaf and burning it does not appear in ancient sources. It is a 20th and 21st-century practice spread by witchcraft books and, since around 2020, by social media manifestation posts. It borrows the laurel's old tie to success and prophecy. Like the birthday candle, it pairs a clear wish with a small act of fire.
On the night before St Valentine's Day, five bay leaves are pinned to the pillow so you will dream of your sweetheart. It was recorded in a 1755 London magazine, along with an egg-and-salt charm and a paper-in-clay lottery for valentines.
Make a silent wish and blow out all the candles on your birthday cake in one breath; if they all go out, the wish comes true. The custom took shape at German children's birthdays in the 1700s.
A green candle is dressed with oil and herbs, marked with what you need, and burned over coins to draw money. It is a 20th-century form that grew out of Hoodoo and mail-order candle magic, now common in modern witchcraft.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
