Brewer's: Aconite

The herb Monkshood or Wolfsbane. Classic fabulists ascribe its poisonous qualities to the foam which dropped from the mouths of the three-headed Cerbërus, when Hercules, at the command of Eurystheus, dragged the monster from the infernal regions. (Latin, aconitum.)

“Lurida terribiles miscent Aconita novercæ.”

Ovid: Metamorphoses, i. 147.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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