Alright, welcome to the potions classroom. I hope you enjoy yourself for this very first day, I guarantee it won't be like the other ones.
Today, we will be having a first look at potions. Please take notes so you have atleast something to write down for your test later on.
Lesson
Potions, remarkable brews with remarkable ingredients, have always been an essential part of the magician's toolkit. The witches of classical mythology cooked up potions to restore youth, turn men into animals, and make themselves invisible. Medival legends and fairy tales tell of sleeping potions, love potions, potions of forgetfulness, and potions to cause jealousy and strife. Alice, in her journey through wonderland, drinks one potion that makes her small and another that makes her tall.
Legends about the magical powers of potions (from the Latin potio), meaning drink no doubt evolved from the very real effects that many substances can have on the body and mind. Tonics that bring on sleep, induce hallucinations, cause paralysis, speed up or slow down the heart, and intoxicate or cloud the brain, have long been known and used both to heal and harm. It is not hard to imagine that with the right combination of ingredients, a potion might cause the drinker to change shape or turn emotions from hate to love.
A striking thing about many potions is the revolting ingredients they often contain. This vulnerable tradition is traceable to ancient Greece and Rome, where real potions, used as medicines as well as for their supposed magical effects, typically called for bat's blood, crushed beetles, toads, feathers, pulverized lizards, bird and animal claws, snake skeletons, and animal entrails. As well as many kinds of dried and fresh herbs.
Why beetles? Why toads? There seems to be no explaining many potion ingredients in a way that makes sense to our modern minds. It's clear, however, that the common use of certain animal parts reflected the ancient belief that the desirable qualities of an animal could be gained by eating that animal. For example, since bats were believed to be able to see in the dark, drinking a potion containing it was thought to improve vision. Similarly, the legs of a hare would convey speed and the flesh or shell of a tortoise would increase longetivity of life.
By the middle ages, love potions had become more platable, and were made out of more herbal than animal ingredients. A typical formula might include oranges, madrake root, vervain, and fern seed, mixed with water, tea, or wine. Today's most favored love potions work in a different way, and are known as perfumes.
End Lesson
Please note that everything underlined will be important on your test.
Today, we will be having a first look at potions. Please take notes so you have atleast something to write down for your test later on.
Lesson
Potions, remarkable brews with remarkable ingredients, have always been an essential part of the magician's toolkit. The witches of classical mythology cooked up potions to restore youth, turn men into animals, and make themselves invisible. Medival legends and fairy tales tell of sleeping potions, love potions, potions of forgetfulness, and potions to cause jealousy and strife. Alice, in her journey through wonderland, drinks one potion that makes her small and another that makes her tall.
Legends about the magical powers of potions (from the Latin potio), meaning drink no doubt evolved from the very real effects that many substances can have on the body and mind. Tonics that bring on sleep, induce hallucinations, cause paralysis, speed up or slow down the heart, and intoxicate or cloud the brain, have long been known and used both to heal and harm. It is not hard to imagine that with the right combination of ingredients, a potion might cause the drinker to change shape or turn emotions from hate to love.
A striking thing about many potions is the revolting ingredients they often contain. This vulnerable tradition is traceable to ancient Greece and Rome, where real potions, used as medicines as well as for their supposed magical effects, typically called for bat's blood, crushed beetles, toads, feathers, pulverized lizards, bird and animal claws, snake skeletons, and animal entrails. As well as many kinds of dried and fresh herbs.
Why beetles? Why toads? There seems to be no explaining many potion ingredients in a way that makes sense to our modern minds. It's clear, however, that the common use of certain animal parts reflected the ancient belief that the desirable qualities of an animal could be gained by eating that animal. For example, since bats were believed to be able to see in the dark, drinking a potion containing it was thought to improve vision. Similarly, the legs of a hare would convey speed and the flesh or shell of a tortoise would increase longetivity of life.
By the middle ages, love potions had become more platable, and were made out of more herbal than animal ingredients. A typical formula might include oranges, madrake root, vervain, and fern seed, mixed with water, tea, or wine. Today's most favored love potions work in a different way, and are known as perfumes.
End Lesson
Please note that everything underlined will be important on your test.
