THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Mandrake

Lisa Karen Miller

“Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil’s foot.”

“Go and Catch a Falling Star,” John Donne

          Thomas Newton, in his 1587 Herball to the Bible, claims that the mandrake “…is supposed to be a creature having life, engendered under the earth of the seed of some dead person put to death for murder.”

          Pythagoras described it as an anthromorph, or a plant in human form.  Its forked, parsnip-like root can be said to resemble a human body.  It was even claimed that it emitted an ear-splitting scream when pulled from the earth.  Yes, just like in Professor Sprout’s greenhouse in Harry Potter.

          Ms. Rowling certainly knows her folklore.

          This resemblance lent it its magical powers. It was used to make a love potion so powerful that an unwilling partner was helpless to resist it. It was commonly worn in France as a love charm. In Silesia, Thuringia, and Bohemia, the mandrake was associated with hidden treasure.

          Germans carved idols out of the root, and consulted them as oracles. These were so popular they were manufactured in bulk and exported to other, similarly gullible, countries. Considerable profit was realized from this practice.

          Unscrupulous root sellers and snake oil salesmen would substitute bryony for mandrake at markets and fairs, extorting a high price for the much more common root. Widely known as Devil’s Candle, mandrake was sacred to witches.  In his “Masque of Queens,” Ben Jonson writes,

“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.”

Note the use of masculine pronouns.

          The Old English Herbarium, written in the 9^th century, prescribes a very specific method for gathering it.  The digger had to inscribe a circle around it with an iron tool, then dig it, being careful not to touch it with the iron.  “When you see its hands and feet, fasten them. Take the other end and fasten it around a dog’s neck (make sure the dog is hungry). Throw some meat in front of him so that he cannot reach it unless he snatches the plant up with him.”

          Mandrake is a suitable plant for October, Halloween, or witchcraft.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller