Deck the Halls (Carefully): Poisonous Plants of Christmas
Thanks to Batman Returns, most people probably know mistletoe is poisonous if you eat it, yet the plant has become intrinsically linked with Christmas. Are any of our other beloved Christmas plants poisonous? Well, yes, as it turns out – especially the so-called Christmas rose, which is not a rose, but a hellebore! Holly berries are toxic too, and while not poisonous, poinsettia sap is certainly irritating. Yet they, and other plants, have become Christmas staples.
This talk will explore the folklore of those plants both associated with Christmas and those that flower in the festive period that are poisonous.
Speaker Bio:
Dr Icy Sedgwick is the host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast, investigating the fascinating world of European folklore with a focus on the British Isles, and the author of Rebel Folklore, Ghostlore, Bring Me Love, and Fate or Fortune. She is fascinated by plant lore, ghost stories, lost gods, and divination. Former ghost hunter Icy also holds a PhD in Film Studies after examining the representation of haunted houses in contemporary Hollywood cinema. https://www.icysedgwick.com
Curated & Hosted by
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon
Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
