Mandrake
Mediterranean mandrakes are perennial herbaceous plants with ovate leaves arranged in a rosette, a thick upright root, often branched, and bell-shaped flowers that produce yellow or orange berries.
[2] Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and the shape of their roots often resembles human figures, they have been associated with magic rituals throughout history, including present-day contemporary pagan traditions.
[4] The French form main-de-gloire ("hand of glory") has been held up as an even "more complete example" of folk etymology (cf.
[6] However, the Latin mandragora, misidentified by false etymology to have a -draco ("dragon") stem (as manifests in the English from "mandrake", above) has caused the plant and beast to be conflated into an Alraundrachen, in the sense of a household spirit.
"little urine thief"[b]) or pisduiveltje ('urine devilkin'), claiming the plant grows from the brains of dead thieves, or the droppings of those hung on the gallows.
[21] Dioscorides as a practicing physician writes that some in his profession may administer a ladle or 1 cyathus (45 ml (1.5 US fl oz)) of mandrake reduction, made from the root boiled in wine until it shrivels to a third, before performing surgery.
[25] Pliny the Elder also repeats that a 1 cyathus dose of mandragora potion is drunk [c] by the patient before incisions or punctures are made on his body.
[30][21] Pliny contends that Phaon of Lesbos Island, by obtaining this phallic root was able to cause the poetess Sappho to fall in love with him.
[30] A parallel has been noted between the lore of the mandrake harvested from a hangman, and the unguent which Medea gave to Iason, which was made from a plant fed with the body fluid from chained Prometheus.
This plant was found by the boy Reuben who supposedly entrusted it to Leah, who would barter it in exchange for allowing her to spend a night in Jacob's bed.
[44] Philippe de Thaun's bestiary in Anglo-Norman verse has a chapter on the "mandragore", which states it consists of two kinds of roots, and must be extracted by the method of using a dog.
He proports it to be a cure of all illnesses, save death[47][48] Josephus (circa 37-100) of Jerusalem instructed on a method of using a dog as surrogate to uproot the dangerous herb used in exorcism.
According to Josephus, it was no easy task for the harvester, because it will move away from the hand which will grab it, and though it can be stopped by pouring a woman's urine or menstrual blood on it, touching it will cause certain death.
Neither of these were registered by the ancient Greek or Latin authors[e] The mandrake is represented as shining at night like a lantern, in the Old English Herbarium (c.
[57] In Medieval times, mandrake was considered a key ingredient in a multitude of witches' flying ointment recipes as well as a primary component of magical potions and brews.
[6] Grimm explains that it passed from the original meaning of a prophetess type of evil-spirit (or wise woman[67]), into the mandrake or plant-root charm.
[68] The form allerünren (or allerünken[69]) is attested as the Dithmarschen dialect for standard diminutive alrünchen, and in the narrative, the doll is carefully locked in a box, since touching it will impart a power to multiply the dough many times over.
right; purchased by Germanisches Nationalmuseum in 1876 where it now remains[81]) had been appraised in the past as having the head made of bryony root, and the body of an alpine leek.
[82] A pair of vintage alraune kept in the Austrian imperial and royal (now national) library, described as being untampered naturally grown roots, belonged to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (d.
[95] The Grimm version has the black dog tied by the tail,[95] but this is not a constant reflected in all the sources, nor does it match the illustrated depictions show above.
[10] A more elaborate set of condition had to be met by the hanged man to produce the magic herb in version given by the Grimms' DS, which essentially amalgamates the formulae from two of its sources.
[95] According to one source, when the hanged man was a hereditary thief (Erbdieb), and the mother while carrying the child either stole or contemplated stealing before giving birth to him, and if died a virgin, then the fluids dripped down will cause a "Galgn-Mänl" to grow there (Grimmelshausen alias Simplicissimus's Galgen-Männlein, 1673).
[97][h] The other source states that when an innocent man hanged as a thief releases "water" from the pain and torture he endured, the plant with plantain-like[i] leaves like will grow from that spot.
And collecting it requires only that it takes place on a Friday before dawn, with the collector stuffing his ears with cotton and sealing them with wax or pitch, and making the sign of the cross three times while harvesting (Johannes Praetorius, Satrunalia, 1663).
[7] Heinrich Marzell [de]'s entry in the HdA ventures that the alraun depicted as flying creature laying golden eggs is in fact a dragon,[50]: 47) though the two Swiss examples, the animal is unidentified (Alräunchen], living in the woods at the foot of Hochwang near Chur),[105] or the alrune is a red-crested bird, which others rumored might generate a thaler coin each day for the owner.
But in return, whatever one gave to the man-de-gloire, a double amount or value was restored next day (even an écu of money), thus enriching its keeper.
[111][112] An excerpt from Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual by nineteenth-century clergyman, occultist, and ceremonial magician Éliphas Lévi, suggests the plant might hint at mankind's "terrestrial origin:" The natural mandragore is a filamentous root which, more or less, presents as a whole either the figure of a man, or that of the virile members.
The first men were, in this case, a family of gigantic, sensitive mandragores, animated by the sun, who rooted themselves up from the earth; this assumption not only does not exclude, but, on the contrary, positively supposes, creative will and the providential co-operation of a first cause, which we have REASON to call GOD.
[113]The following is taken from Jean-Baptiste Pitois's The History and Practice of Magic (1870), and explains a ritual for creating a mandrake: Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by Paracelsus?
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.
