Originally published at Lughnasa 1998. Henbane, whose botanical name is Hyoscyamus niger, is a member of the Solanaceae order of plants which includes such innocuous members as the humble potato and tomato but also highly poisonous and notorious ones such as belladonna, mandrake and the daturas.
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. English: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-BarthÃ©lemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Protestants).
Thousands of Huguenots were in Paris celebrating the marriage of Henry of Navarre to Marguerite de Valois on Saint Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572. On that day, soldiers and organized mobs fell upon the Huguenots, and thousands of them were slaughtered.