Herbal Legends: Yi Mu Cao 益母草 (Chinese Motherwort)

Herbal Legends IV:

A good-hearted young woman named Xiu Niang lived at the foot of Mount Dagu. Shortly after her wedding she became pregnant and spend her days weaving cotton into yarn. One day a something strange occurred: While she was weaving, an injured muntjac suddenly ran into her house and made sounds as if pleading for his life. When Xiu Niang looked out of her door, she could see a hunter approaching her house from afar. The young woman felt compassion for this small animal and hid it under her stool, whereupon she also hung her skirt over it. When the hunter arrived at her house, he inquired, whether she perhaps had seen an injured muntjac.

Xiu Niang responded casually without even interrupting her work:
“Yes, it just ran past here. I saw it run towards the East.”
The hunter consequently stormed East and Xiu Niang told the muntjac:
“Flee towards the West!”
And the muntjac as if he was crystal-clear of her words knelt down on his front legs as a gesture of gratitude and humility and nodded his head several times. Thereafter it dashed away towards the West. Not long after Xiu Niang went into labour, but the birth turned out to be complicated. The midwife administered several remedies to promote her birthing process, but they were of hardly any help. Eventually the midwife was at her wit’s end and the situation became more and more life-threatening. Xiu Niang’s relatives were pacing to and fro restlessly and wept in despair. At that moment the door was flung open and that very muntjac, which was saved by Xiu Niang, entered the room. In his snout it held a bunch of a wild herb and trotted to Xiu Niang’s bed. He tilted his head back, emitted a few barking sounds and tears of empathy welled up in his eyes. Xiu Niang understood immediately the animal’s intention and instructed her husband, to receive the herb from the muntjac’ s mouth and to boil it in water. After Xiu Niang had drunk the decoction, her pains slowly subsided and her body finally relaxed. After a short while her child saw the light of the world and the room was filled with its cries and blaring. The whole family was overly happy and joyous. Xiu Niang had experienced the effect of the herb personally on her own body and comprehended its workings. After she had recovered from the strains of giving birth, she collected this herb and cultivated it herself. Whenever a woman gave birth to a child, she provided the herb to be ingested. Because this herb was very helpful to mothers in difficult situation during childbirth, she named it “Herb that Benefits Mothers.”

[Yi Mu Cao 益母草, Leonurus japonicus, common name Motherwort]