Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #30
June 8, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
30.) Dwale
-noun singular
a.) The deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), a plant having soporific or stupefying qualities.*
b.) A sleeping potion or opiate.
c.) The tincture sable or black when blazoned according to the fantastic system in which plants are substituted for the tinctures.
[Origin: Possibly of Scandinavian roots, from the Danish dvale
meaning “sleep” or “stupor.”]
*Dwale has also been known as banewort, divale, dwayberry, black cherry, devil’s herb, great morel, devil’s cherries, naughty man’s cherries, or belladonna (originating from its historic use by women in the form of eye-drops to dilate their pupils to produce a dreamy, intoxicated stare considered to be the height of fetching beauty). It is one of two species to be known as deadly nightshade; the other is Solanum nigrum. It was thought that a combination of belladonna and aconite was used by witches and sorcerers to fly in the Middle Ages.
