See also Monkshood for the species Aconitum napellus with similar, but unique, sentiments and symbolism.
☙ Wolfsbane
TOXIC - DEADLY. DO NOT CONSUME. DO NOT HANDLE WITHOUT PROTECTION.
Genus Aconitum L. (1753). WFO
Period English: wolfsbane.
Period French: aconit m.; LB tue-loup m. ('wolfsbane'). LB
Period German: Eiſenhut m. ('iron-hat'); JDS Eisenhütchen n. ('little iron-hat'). JRV
Anglo-Saxon: þung m. (thung, 'poisonous plant') (Ælfric's Vocabulary or Glossary, 10th C.; Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary, 11th C.; Durham Glossary of the names of Worts, 11th C., all via HNE). HNE
Tudor English: aconitum (Turner 1548, 1568). HNE
Elizabethian English: wolfes-bane (Gerard 1597, 1568). HNE
Stuart English: aconit; aconitum; wolfe-bane (Cotgrave 1611). HNE
Sentiments:
🏶︎ Vengeance ◼︎ (1841); JDS
🏶︎ Misanthropy ▲︎◆︎ (1858-1884); HGA:LPF GAL JS CMK KG
🏶︎ Komm Herzliebchen in mein Hüttchen.Come, darling, into my little cottage. ●︎ ︎(c.1880). JRV
Region:
Native: Species found so widely across the northern hemisphere it is not particularly pratical to list.WFO
Seasonality: Deciduous perennials and biennials, mostly flowering summer.
Heraldry: TBC.
Religious: TBC.
Cited Species:
🏶︎ Aconitum × cammarum L. (1763), purple wolfsbane (in Victorian horticulture)
= Aconitum paniculatum Lam (1779);WFO HNE
🏶︎ Aconitum lycoctonum L. (1753), yellow-flowered monkshood;WFO HNE
🏶︎ Aconitum japonicum Thunb. (1794), Japanese monkshood (in Victorian horticulture)WFO HNE
🏶︎ Aconitum napellus L. (1753). WFO HNE
🏶︎ Aconitum variegatum L. (1753), Manchurian monkshood;WFO HNE
HNE also mentions A. autumnale as being in Victorian horticulture, all of which are synonyms, but I am as yet unable to specify if he means the updated A. fischeri Rchb. (1820) or A. tauricum Wulfen (1789).
HNE says that A. lycoctonum, A. variegatum, A. napellus, and a variety I cannot pinpoint called A. pyrenaicum were the species grown by Gerard in his London garden.
Cited Verse:
❧ 'At rabidae tigres absunt et saeva leonum / [...] / squameus in spiram tractu se colligit anguis.', 'Liber II', Georgics, Virgil (c.29 BCE) lines 151-154; HNE
❧ 'Let me have / A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear / [...] / As violently as hasty powder fired', ◆︎ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597) 5.1.59 (indirectly by allusion to gunpowder and poison); HNE
❧ 'The united vessel of their blood, / [...] / As Aconitum or rash gunpowder.', ◆︎ William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (1600) 4.4.44; HNE
❧ 'I have heard that aconite / Being timely taken, hath a healing might / Against the scorpion's stroke;', ◆︎ Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall (1603) 3.3, Read Here; HNE
❧ 'Horrible, sur sa tête altière, / L'Aconit, au suc malfaisant, / Comme s'il s'armait pour la guerre, / Élève un casque menaçant;', 'Chant Troisième', ◼︎ Charles-Louis Mollevaut, Les Fleurs, Poëme en Quatre Chants, Paris: A. Bertrand (1818) p.60; HP:FE
Other Verse:
❧ 'Wolf's bane is not so sharp as steel; yet it pierceth the body more subtly.', 'Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente, vel LXV', ◆︎ Aleister Crowley, The Blue Equinox (1919) 1:13 Read Here;
❧ 'Widdershins go when Moon doth wane, / And the werewolves howl by the dread wolfsbane'', 'The Rede of the Wiccae', ▲︎ Phyllis Thompson (as Lady Gwen Thompson), Green Egg, issue 69 (1975) Read Here.