Monkshood is poison in the shape of a plant with attractive though oddly shaped blue flowers. Everybody knew this, and it shows in their myths, beginning with the entrance to Hades, where Monkshood was said to grow. How that happened was that Hercules was granted permission to take Cerberus, the snarling hellhound, three-headed guardian of the portals of Hades, if he could do so with his bare hands (and when you've got some portals involved, you know you've got a real myth going on.) Hercules, of course did it, and as he passed outward through the entrances into Hades, through those very portals, with the snarling three-headed hellhound slung over his shoulder, the beast's frothy drool splattered the ground around that entrance, and it was from where the spittle hit the ground that Monkshood grew. Wow.
Monkshood was one of many flying herbs favored by medieval witches, who did things with it/them that's just too icky to get into here, though some booked their flights by chewing the leaves. I imagine there was fine line between flying and dying.
And, as I wrote earlier in the year, Monkshood is also know as wolfbane, the same wolfbane of werewolf lore and Lon Chaney, Jr.
The ancient Greeks were well aware of monkshood's poisonous and paralyzing properties. They also believed it was responsible for fevers that broke out in areas where it grew.
The entire species of plants which Monkshood belongs to, Aconitum, has had something of a reputation going all the way back to ancient Europe and northern Asia. Aconite poison was used on the tips of harpoons by whalers in northern Asia, and the practice made its way to North America across the Bering Strait, where it was used by Aleutian and Kodiak whalers.
And finally, during the 16th century, a self-proclaimed sage by the name of Hieronymus Mercurialis did research on how aconite, the poison that gives Monkshood its kick, killed man and beast if it touched their genitals. I'm not sure where to go with that, though the thought of his lab experiments is a little unsettling. He did make some useful discoveries, one of which was that aconite cured scorpion stings. But he'll always be remembered for his genitals.
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