Wormwood
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Wormwood is a
herb of the genus
Artemisia, family
Asteraceae. All types have an extremely bitter
taste.
Common wormwood or
green ginger (
Artemisia absinthium L.) was used to repel fleas and moths, and in
brewing. It is also used medically as a tonic, stomachic, febrifuge and anthelmintic. It is native to Europe and Siberia and is now widespread in the United States.
Its bitterness also led to its use by wet-nurses for
weaning infants from the breast, as in this speech from
Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene 3:
- Nurse: ...\n::And she [Juliet] was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,-- \n::Of all the days of the year, upon that day: \n::For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, \n::...
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Roman wormwood (
Artemesia pontica) is a flavouring ingredient that provides the
psychoactive chemical
thujone in the alcoholic drink
absinthe.
Other species of wormwood
\n*Sea wormwood (Artemesia maritima)
Associations in human culture
Wormwood (absinthos in the Greek text) is the 'name of the star' in the Book of Revelation (8:11) that John envisions as cast by the angel and falling into the waters, making them undrinkably bitter. Besides in the Book of Revelation we find up to 8 further references in the
Bible showing that Wormwood was a common
herb of the area and its awful taste was known, as a drinkable preparation applied for specific reasons. This makes sense since the people of those days lived so much closer to the ground and must have appreciated the effects of wormwood to control parasites.
Some authors thought that
Chernobyl translates as Wormwood (the correct translation is
Mugwort), which has led some (notably the authors of
Left Behind) to theorize that this is a coded reference to radioactive contamination.
Wormwood is a junior devil in
The Screwtape Letters a novel by
C. S. Lewis on human temptation.
Miss Wormwood is Calvin's teacher in
Calvin and Hobbes, a former daily comic strip by
Bill Watterson. This character is reportedly named after the Screwtape Letters character mentioned above.
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