Mandrake
A medicinal plant with a narcotic effect, mandrake or the mandragore (Mandragora officinarum L.) was thought to be a
potentially lethal herb to harvest from the earth. For this reason, great caution was used in gathering these magical roots.
As early as C.E. 93 the historian Flavius Josephus (C.E. c. 37-c. 100) described the process, stories of which were embellished over
the years. Many people believed that the mandrake shrieked when harvested and that anyone hearing the piercing cry would die. To avoid
this, dogs were used to gather the root. The dog was starved for several days and then tied to the root, around which a trench had been
cut. The owner stood out of earshot and threw a piece of meat, and as the dog leapt for the meat, the mandrake root was pulled from
the ground. Some writers actually stated that the dog immediately died. There are also references to the use of a sword to draw three
circles around the plant and to the fact the plant could be removed only after sundown.
The root of the mandrake resembles a phallus or a human torso, and for this reason was believed to have occult powers. In some areas
of Europe, possession of the root was punishable by death.
Medieval witches were said to harvest the root at night beneath gallows trees - trees where unrepentant criminals, evil since birth,
were supposed to have died. The root purportedly sprang up from the criminal's body drippings. According to Christian lore, the witch
washed the root in wine and wrapped it in silk and velvet. She fed it with sacramental wafers stolen from a church during communion.
Perhaps because it was believed to spring from such substances as a dead criminal's semen, mandrake root was often used in love
potions. The fruits of the plant, also called love apples, were believed to increase fertility.
The crushed root was purported to have caused hallucinations followed by a death-like trance and sleep. The root was also said to have
caused insanity, and was believed to have been used in flying potions.
In Germany, peasants added millet grains for eyes and took great care of their little mandrakes - bathing them, dressing them, tucking
them in at night (sometimes in a coffin) - in order to consult them on important questions. In France, they were considered a kind of
elf, called the main-de-gloire or magloire. Often they were stashed in secret cupboards, because possessing one
could be dangerous on other counts, too: it could expose the owner to the charge of witchcraft. In 1630, three women in Hamburg were
executed on this evidence, and in Orleans in 1603 the wife of a Moor was hanged for harboring a 'mandrake-fiend,' purportedly in the
shape of a female monkey.
A hag in Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens says,
I last night lay all alone
On the ground, to hear the mandrake groan;
And plucked him up, though he grew full low,
And, as I had done, the cock did crow
In one of the early Harry Potter films, the students of Hogwarts are given a lesson in the proper way to pull up and repot the vicious
little shrieking plant-men - while wearing earmuffs, of course.
Copyright 2007 Todd Frye
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