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All about garlic > Stories, myths and legends
In Egypt unfaithful husbands relied on garlic's unique "scented" properties. According to Charmidas, they would chew a clove or two on their way home from visiting their mistresses so that their whole body was impregnated with the odour, ensuring that a jealous wife would be unable to detect any stranger's perfume.
During NoRuz, the Iranian new year which takes place around March 21 (depending on the year), tradition dictates that the table in every Iranian home be laid with "haft sin," or the seven "S's," seven symbolic elements which include "seer," or garlic, to chase away evil spirits.
A bite from a watch dog is much more cutting and painful if the dog has eaten garlic at the New Year.
Folklore from Germany and Czechoslovakia
Garlic is as good as ten mothers.
Proverb
Modern representations of the vampire legend always seem to show braids of garlic hanging from the beams of kitchens in which poor peasants tremble with fear. The belief that garlic could combat evil dates back to the medieval era when children would play or work in the fields with cloves of garlic hung around their necks to protect them from the evil spells of the local witch… because everybody knows that witches love children!
This custom gradually changed, and in the 19th century, cloves of garlic adorned only the necks of cows and heifers.
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