A dedicated gardener knows every plant in the soil, from their sowing, growing and harvesting seasons, to each plant's application and care. They get to know plants from the first sprout, to the dried seed pods, and every stage in between.
Our gardens grow and change and evolve with the seasons of our lives, reflecting the bursting fertility of spring, the abundance of summer, the harvests of autumn and the stark hibernation of winter. With so many plants providing sources of traditional medicines, tinctures and salves, even casual gardeners find themselves growing plants traditionally associated with witchcraft, healers, and practitioners of service magic.
Foxglove raises towers of speckled bells in shades of purple, pink and white. Monkshood blooms in extraordinary violet-blue. Datura unfurls enormous white trumpets. Poppies nod on slender stems, while belladonna produces modest purple flowers followed by glossy black berries.
Henbane is stranger still. Its pale yellow-green flowers are threaded with dark purple veins surrounding a nearly black center, rising among pointed leaves and long stalks of seed pods that look almost otherworldly.
Several plants in the poison garden remain familiar ornamental or wild plants today and can be found decorating wild meadows, but each carry their own dark history connected to accusations of witchcraft, and the persecution of women healers and midwives in patriarchal societies.
They are the inspiration behind a new Studio Henbane series: The Poison Garden.
What Are the Baneful Herbs?
"Baneful herbs" is a useful modern umbrella for plants historically associated with poison, dangerous medicine, intoxication, magic and witchcraft. It isn't the name of one specific historical group of plants, and not every plant now placed beneath that dark botanical umbrella had the same cultural associations.
Some of the plants from the poison garden have been used as medicines, some as poisons, and some have been used as both. And some became associated with witchcraft because the knowledge of their harvest, preparation, and use was commonly kept by women, midwives and folkhealers. In eras dominated by strict patriarchal authority, this unchecked knowledge in the hands of lower caste women created fear in the men they clothed, fed, healed, and cleaned for.
The plants most commonly associated with the Poison Garden are henbane, belladonna, mandrake, datura, monkshood or aconite, foxglove, hemlock and the opium poppy. Their histories and uses stretch back much farther than the European witch trials.
Ancient Greek and Roman physicians wrote about medicinal and poisonous plants. Medieval herbals preserved and expanded botanical knowledge. Monastic gardens grew plants capable of easing pain and treating illness alongside plants that could be dangerous when improperly used. Apothecaries, physicians, midwives and household healers all relied on medicines that came overwhelmingly from plants, animals and minerals and were made at home, or by the local healer.
The distinction between a remedy and a poison could depend on many factors.
Poisoner, Healer, Witch
This is also where the history becomes complicated.
Modern popular culture tends to package this into a tidy story: women with extensive knowledge of medicinal plants were called witches, persecuted by the Church, and their herbal knowledge became the foundation of modern medicine. There are individual cases in which healing, magical practice, or medicinal knowledge became entangled with accusations of witchcraft, but the historical record is much messier than the familiar story suggests.
Some people accused of witchcraft practiced healing, but not all. Herbal knowledge was widespread and wasn't inherently considered evidence of witchcraft. Physicians and apothecaries commonly used plants that we now recognize as highly toxic. At the same time, poisonous and mind-altering plants really do appear in historical discussions of magic, poisoning and witchcraft.
The same herb might exist in several worlds simultaneously. A physician might consider it a medicine. An apothecary might consider it an ingredient. A poisoner might see a weapon. A folkloric tradition might transform it into something supernatural. Finally, based on the word of another accused, a Witchfinder could turn common healing and plant knowledge into evidence of witchcraft and justification for a confession of witchcraft gained through methods of torture.
The line between medicine and poison has never been as simple as the labels suggest. Many of these plants contain compounds capable of producing profound effects on the human body, and their histories have accumulated layers of medicine, folklore, fear, superstition, and myth over centuries. Nearly all these plants have the power to both heal and kill depending on the preparation and dose. Many of their chemical compounds have been synthesized into our modern medicines, after millennia of use in folk medicines.
In the next installments of The Poison Garden, I'll explore each of these plants individually, separating what we know from historical and archaeological evidence from the folklore that grew around them. We'll follow henbane, belladonna, datura, mandrake, monkshood, foxglove, hemlock, and the opium poppy through gardens, herbals, apothecaries, courtrooms, folklore, and medicine.
The truth behind the Poison Garden is often stranger, and far more interesting, than the mythology.