poster for the 1941 horror . lm The Wolf Man.
“Wolf’s-bane, what about that?” asks Rose, while the Doctor’s group comb-search Sir Robert’s father’s library for arcane information. Also known (intriguingly) as ‘monkshood’, the highly toxic aconitum ª ower supposedly gained the common name ‘wolf’s-bane’ when it was used to poison wild animals in ancient Greece. Its association with werewolves has a much more modern origin, however – the doggerel verse composed by screenwriter Curt Siodmak for the Wales-set Universal horror movie The Wolf Man (1941): “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright…”