In the story the Odyssey, Hermes gave this herb to Odysseus to protect him from Circe's wizardry when he went to her palace to rescue his friends. These friends came together with him from the islandAiolos after they escaped from the Laestrygonians. According to the "New History" of Ptolemy Hephaestion the plant mentioned by Homer grew from the blood of the Giant killed on Circe's island, by Helios, father and ally of Circe. In this description the flower was white, and a derivation of the name was given, from the "hard" combat with the Giant. Homer also describes Moly by saying "The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the godscall it Moly, Dangerous for a mortal man to pluck from the soil, but not for the deathless gods. All lies within their power". So Ovid describes in book 14 of his Metamorphoses - "A white bloom with a root of black".
Assignment to a real species
There has been much controversy as to the identification. Philippe Champault decides in favour of the Peganum harmala, the Syrian or African rue, from the husks of which the vegetable alkaloid harmaline is extracted. The flowers are white with green stripes. Victor Bérard relying partly on a Semitic root, prefers the Atriplex halimus, order Chenopodiaceae, a herb or low shrub common on the south European coasts. These identifications are noticed by R. M. Henry, who illustrates the Homeric account by passages in the Paris and Leiden magical papyri, and argues that moly is probably a magical name, derived perhaps from Phoenician or Egyptian sources, for a plant which cannot be certainly identified. He shows that the "difficulty of pulling up" the plant is not a merely physical one, but rather connected with the peculiar powers claimed by magicians. Medical historians have speculated that the transformation to pigs was not intended literally but refers to anticholinergic intoxication. Symptoms include amnesia, hallucinations, and delusions - this description of "moly" fits the snowdrop, a flower of the region that contains galantamine, which is an anticholinesterase and can therefore counteract anticholinergics.
Carl Linnaeus referenced the mythical plant with Allium moly, the scientific name for golden garlic, though the perianth of this species is yellow, not white.
Thom Gunn made his poem 'Moly' the title poem of his 1971 collection. See https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52888/moly
In the Harry Potter universe, moly is a powerful plant that can be eaten to counteract enchantments.
John Milton referred to "...that Moly/That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave" in lines 636 and 637 of the Mask Performed at Ludlow Castle, also known as Comus. See https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/comus/text.shtml.
In Ursula K. Le Guin's, The Farthest Shore, the true names of the moly plant are taught to students of Roke, “Now the petal of the flower of moly hath a name, which is iebera, and so also the sepal, which is partonath; and stem and leaf and root hath each his name..."
