THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Henbane

Lisa Karen Miller

          Belle Elmore was, by all accounts, rather a domineering woman.  She had aspirations of becoming an opera star, but alas, not the talent.  She did some music hall shows in New Jersey, and then later in London, where she and her husband had moved in 1900.  

          After a dinner party with friends, yet another argument occurred between long-suffering husband and overbearing wife. Ostensibly to calm her down, he gave her some hyoscine which he had purchased two weeks earlier.   

          No one ever saw her alive again after that January night in 1910.

          The husband?  Dr. Harvey Hawley Crippen.

          His fate?  Dangling from the hangman’s rope on November 23, 1910.

          Hyoscine is derived from Hyocyamus niger, or henbane. Far back in antiquity, it was used to sedate or calm. The Greeks used it to treat “madness,” in those days meaning any alteration of consciousness.  Various types were inspired by different gods. 

          The best kind was love, the madness brought by Aphrodite.

This seems rather appropriate for Crippen, who had fallen in love with his meek and adoring secretary, Ethel Le Neve, and wished to rid himself of the shrew to whom he was chained.

          Henbane is associated with death in many cultures.  The dead wore crowns of henbane as they walked alongside the River Styx in the underworld.  It helped them forget the lives and loved ones left behind.

          Its common name derives from its frequent poisoning of grazing livestock.  Before people realized that the chickens were eating a toxic plant, they often blamed a witch.

          In medieval Europe, henbane was a witch’s herb, and was one of the ingredients used in magical flying ointments, concocted to give hallucinations of flight.

          It was also used, along with poppy and mandrake, in a sedating sponge.   The sponge would be soaked in the juices of these three, then dried and stored. When needed, it was sprinkled with hot water and inhaled by the patient.

          Crippen’s other claim to infamy was being the first criminal apprehended with the help of wireless telegraphy.  The captain of the ship on which he and Ethel attempted to escape to Canada became suspicious of the “father and son” who had been seen holding hands.  

          He sent a message to British authorities, who sent Chief Inspector Walter Dew on a faster ship.  In Quebec, he came on board and took Crippen off in handcuffs.

          For a thrilling non-fiction account of Crippen’s apprehension by use of Marconi’s invention, read Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck.

          Crippen serves as an eternal reminder to choose our spouses carefully.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller