potion

"The Love Potion" by Evelyn de Morgan.

A potion (from Latin potio "drink", in turn derived from Greek poton "that which one drinks") is a consumable medicine or poison.

In mythology and literature, a potion is usually made by a magician, sorcerer, dragon, fairy or witch and has magical properties. It might be used to heal, bewitch or poison people. For example, love potions make a person fall in love (or become deeply infatuated) with another (the love potion figures tragically into most versions of the tale of Tristan and Iseult, including Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde); sleeping potions cause a person to fall asleep (in folklore, this can range from normal sleep to a deathlike trance); and elixirs heal/cure any wound/malady (as in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Goscinny and Uderzo's character Asterix the Gaul gained superhuman strength from a magic potion brewed by the druid Getafix.

Creation of potions of different kinds was a common practice of alchemy, and was commonly associated with witchcraft, as in The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

During the 19th Century, it was common in certain countries to see wandering charlatans offering curative potions. These eventually gained reputations as quack medicines. In later years, these transformed into patent medicines.

Illustration by Arthur Rackham to Richard Wagner's Siegfried: While Siegfried reforges the sword Nothung, Mime prepares a sleeping potion to use on him.

In modern fantasy, potions are often portrayed as spells in liquid form, capable of causing a variety of effects, including healing, amnesia, infatuation, transformation, invisibility, and invulnerability.^[1] Potions have also gained popularity as a standard item in role-playing video games, usually as a healing item. The availability of healing potions in the popular Final Fantasy series of games eventually resulted in the release of an actual beverage named "Potion" in Japan by Square Enix, the games' creators.

See also

• aphrodisiac
• concoction
• elixir
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

References

External links

• Poisoning in the Middle Ages