leechcraft

plural leechcrafts

1. historicaluncountableusuallyThe art or practice of healing or medicine.

   Herb Lore & Leechcraft

   2010, Eoghan Odinsson, Northern Lore: A Field Guide to the Northern Mind-Body-Spirit

   5 more examples

   The course of his adventures at length conducted him to Scotland, where he followed his leechcraft with similar success.

   1861, David Irving, John Aitken Carlyle, David Laing, The history of Scotish poetry

   The earliest was Apollo, and his son Aesculapius, and Asclepios; and Asclepios was uncle of Hippocrates ; these four earliest invented the building up of leechcrafts about fifteen hundred years after Noah's flood in the days of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians; [...]

   1904, Joseph Frank Payne, English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times

   Our villain, who may or may not be 'Dr James', knows his Latin but not - if I may so phrase it - his leechcraft."

   2003, David Langford, He Do the Time Police in Different Voices

   The use of vapour baths ('stone baths') and the smoke of certain herbs to drive out spirits of disease in animals and humans is well-attested in Germanic folklore and leechcraft, though, and might be compared with the use of steam and steam-baths typical of classical medicine, the Christian ritual of burning away the ashes of embers of sin [...]

   2006, Mindy MacLeod, Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects

   According to Geoffrey and Layamon it is through his “leechcraft” that he is able to make Uther look like Gorlois.

   2007, Jessica V. Tomaselli, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. English, The coexistence of paganism and Christianity in the Arthurian legends

2. uncountableusuallyThe skill or expertise of a physician, medical knowledge; medical attendance.

   He proposed that Olav Audunsson should move down to his house and submit himself to his leechcraft.

   1995, Sigrid Undset, In the Wilderness

   2 more examples

   Smitten with apprehension, I crawled unto the cell of one of the brethren, renowned for his leechcraft; [...]

   1829, Mrs. Gore (Catherine Grace Frances), Hungarian tales

   She had long ago accepted his disapproval, but she had perfect trust in him and his leechcraft as she had had at Hugh's bedside in Bordeaux.

   1981, Anya Seton, Katherine