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).
Shakespeare, The Massacre at Vassy and Othello. 1  Almost exactly two years before Shakespeare was born, there was a terrible event in the history of the Protestant Reformation. 2  In the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, in the commune of Vassy, many Protestant Huguenots gathered for Mass in a barn which was their church.