Culpeper placed valerian under Mercury, and its calming reputation carried into folk magic, where the root was used in charms for peace, sleep and reconciliation, hung in the home to still quarrels and laid where lovers had fallen out. Its powerful scent, unpleasant to many people, also gave it a protective role, buried or hung to turn away evil. In the Victorian language of flowers valerian stood, aptly, for an accommodating disposition. Its meanings cluster consistently around rest, harmony and the settling of strife, read from the genuine quieting effect of its warm root-infusion and the deep, animal pull of its smell.
The plant's pull on cats runs parallel to, but is chemically distinct from, the well-known effect of catnip, and valerian is in fact sometimes used by breeders and trainers precisely because many cats that ignore catnip still respond strongly to valerian root, a genuine feline behavioural quirk documented by veterinary researchers rather than folk fancy. Commercial cat toys are now sometimes scented with dried valerian root rather than catnip for exactly this reason, a small modern industry built on the same root once dried and hung in troubled human households in the hope of restoring peace.