The third trumpet blows

Rev. 8:10-11 (ESV)
The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. [11] The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

“The name of the Star is wormwood.” For many of us this conjures up the great C.S. Lewis book “the Screwtape Letters.” What a great book. I will be forever indebted to my dad’s vicar at Grace Lutheran in Lancaster CA, his name was Guy (Greenelch? Probably misspelled, sorry.) He loaned me his copy when I was a teenager. Screwtape was a Demon who wrote letters to his nephew Wormwood coaching him in his occupation as a soul stealer. It is a great little book. C.S. Lewis gives this nephew the name Wormwood, presumably because of this star that poisons the water. Often the demons that fell with Satan, and even Satan himself are referred to as stars falling from heaven.
Wormwood falls and poisons the water, the fresh water on earth. Wormwood is an herb used in making Absinthe, which at one time was banned from sale in the United States. Today I guess you can buy it but I hear it has lost the potency that it had when Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and the French painter Lautrec would spend his evenings painting the prostitutes of Moulin Rouge dancing the Can Can whilst drinking himself to death on the stuff. I find the less potent stuff is still potent enough. Wormwood should be handled with care. In small amounts I hear it has medicinal value. However it is bitter and has potential to be a poison.
It is however doubtful that it is a literal use of wormwood that poisons the water. In most countries it is considered unsafe to drink the water. I like travelling outside the states because they are always advising me to drink the beer instead, or wine. I’m ok with either. However, water born diseases are common throughout the world. And this is a reality that also speaks to the persecution of God’s people everywhere by the Devil who takes great joy in seeing God’s creations suffer.