The roots of the Mandragora genus of plants are known as Mandrakes. Once prized as magical ingredients they are hallucinogenic and highly toxic. It was once believed that when uprooted, the Mandrake would scream. Its terrible cry striking dead any who heard it
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Legend and superstition surround the mandrake. The root of the mandrake has a peculiar shape, sometimes resembling human legs or arms, or even a complete body. The strange shape of the mandrake’s root contributed to its reputation as a magical, and dangerous, plant.
Many people believed that the mandrake root screamed as it was pulled from the ground. To dig up the mandrake and hear its cries meant certain death, so ancient herbalists instructed people to tie a dog to the mandrake and force the animal to pull it up, thereby killing the dog but saving themselves. [1]
Mandragora is a plant genus belonging to the nightshade family (Solanaceae). There are five distinct species of Mandragora, all of which are also called Mandrakes. Although toxic if incorrectly used, Mandrake root has been used in herbal medicines in Europe and the East, for millennia. Of course, the plants also have a long-standing association with magic and witchcraft. The human-like form the root takes has, as is mentioned above, undoubtedly played a key role in the plants’ sinister reputation.
The following a quotation from Jean-Baptiste Pitois’ The History and Practice of Magic (1870):
Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by Paracelsus? Then find a root of the plant called bryony [note that Bryony or Bryonia is today recognised as a separate, though similar, genus of plant to the Mandrake]. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man’s grave. For 30 days, water it with cow’s milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man’s winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere. [2]
Mandragora roots are used in traditional medicine for pain relief, and the compounds within the plants do have analgesic effects when given in the correct dosage. The deliriant and hallucinogenic properties of Mandrakes are much more widely know and speculated upon, however.
Mandragora has long been believed to have been a principal ingredient in the ointment or salve which witches were said to use to enable them to fly. The idea of the witch’s physical body lying in a comatose, sleeping, state, while her soul leaves to ride through the skies on a broomstick or beast is (it had been argued) consistent with the state of delirium which can be induced by Mandrake.
REFERENCES
- “Herball, Generall Historie of Plants“, John Gerard, 1597 https://web.archive.org/web/20120901024318/http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/rare_books/herbalism/gerard.cfm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake#cite_note-Moore-2