So, I was rereading "
The Enchantress of Sylaire," and I got to the following part:
Quote:... Anselme watched in wonder while the wolf began to uproot with his paws certain plants that somewhat resembled wild garlic. These he devoured with palpable eagerness.
Anselme's mouth gaped at the thing which ensued. One moment the wolf was before him. Then, where the wolf had been, there rose up the figure of a man, lean, powerful, with blue-black hair and beard, and darkly flaming eyes. The hair grew almost to his brows, the beard nearly to his lower eye-lashes. His arms, legs, shoulders and chest were matted with bristles.
For reference, this is wild garlic:
Wild Onions
I always wondered what herb CAS had in mind when he wrote that paragraph. The herb, whatever it is, suppresses the werewolf magic on Malachie du Marais long enough for him to converse with Anselme. This time, as I reread the passage, I remembered the bit in
The Odyssey, where Odysseus is armed by Hermes with the herb
moly, which prevents him from being turned into a pig by Circe's drugged food.
Now, if you read the Wikipedia page on
moly, there's a section which talks about the difficulty in identifying which real life herb Homer might have been referencing. The herb is described as a white flower with a black root. One of the strong contenders is the
snowdrop, which, for medical reasons, could be called an "anti-lycanthropy" herb -- it provides chemicals which can counteract the anticholinergic agents in belladonna, mandrake, datura and other plants which can cause hallucinations of shapechanging.
This is snowdrop:
Snowdrop
I don't know if CAS was that well-read that he was able to make this connection, but I thought it was wild and wanted to share it.
ROLAND VOLZ
Favorite Authors: Jack Vance, Jorge Luis Borges, R. A. Lafferty, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith
