Mandrake
Mandragora
An aphrodisiac, inspirer of visions and aid to flying, the mandrake was the most potent of the many plants that figured in witchcraft; its role was of such antiquity that it was sometimes called Circe's Plant, after that ancestress of witches. But in addition to its value as a drug, the mandrake had a characteristic that gave it astonishing power - and made its harvest a perilous task.
It was widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean regions, North Africa, and Asia, it is a lowgrowing but gaudy and even flamboyant plant, which purplish bell-shaped flowers and fleshy orange berries. Drugs made from its root include poisons, love potions, and narcotics. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, enjoyed 'highs' from drinking a potion of mandragora.
It was not completely vegetable, scholars said. The knobby, forked, manlike root harbored a tiny spirit or demon; thus the Romans called the mandrake half-man. Those who dared the capture of the demon could expect great reward.
What made the captrue difficult was the pain it inflicted on the plant, for when its root was torn from the ground, the mandrake gave a shriek so terrible that any creature within earshot was struck dead, but if they survived the shriek could cause hysteria and even madness. Accordingly, a variety of rituals grew up to protect those who desired the mandrake.
The plant had to be harvested at night, when the baleful glow of its leaves made it easy to find. The herb gatherer stufed his ears with wax and dug around the plant until he had freed all but the last threads of the root. Then he - or she - looped a line around the base of the root and tied that line to the collar of a dog. He placed a scrap of meat or bread just out of range of the tethered animal and ran for his life. The dog, in lunging for the food, would tear the mandrake from its bed of earth. The plant and the demon it sheltered now belonged to the gatherer; the dog, of course, would be killed by the demonic scream.
Once aquired, the mandrake root was treasured, for if it was bathed in wine and wrapped in silk, the demon within it would speak, offering counsel and prophecy.
Like the Gin Seng or Man-Plant, the mandrake's root often has a close resemblance to the lower portions of a male body including the legs and sexual organs. For this reason it is valued as a source of powerful love potions.