History - Mandrake, plant, root, herb - Mandragora Officinaris, European Mandrake, Attropa Mandragora.

The best-known of all the aphrodisiacs of the ancient world was the mandrake or mandragora, a purple-flowered tuber with roots that often resembled the human body. The value of mandrake as an aphrodisiac and as an aid to conception is espoused in Genesis 30:14-17: And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, "Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes." And she said unto her, "Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? And wouldst thou take away my son's mandrakes also?" And Rachel said, "Therefore he shall lie with thee tonight for thy son's mandrakes." And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, "Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes." And he lay with her that night. And God harkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob the fifth son. There is another reference to the mandrake in the Song of Solomon: The Mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for the, O my beloved. The Hebrew word dudaim has been translated in the Song of Solomon as "mandrake." The word dudaim refers to a fruit with a sweet and agreeable odour much in demand by the male sex. The word is probably derived from dudim (the pleasure of love) and has been translated as "apples." It was also valued in ancient Greece and Rome for its narcotic properties and was used as a surgical anaesthetic.

Mandrake in the Roman Empire

A fable from second-century Rome warns that whoever puller a mandrake out of the ground would suffer dire consequences. The demon inhabiting the root would be aroused and the sounds of its piercing shrieks of agony would be so horrible that the harvester would die on the spot. But if one drew three circles around the plant with the tip of a willow wand and ties a black thread from the plant to the collar of a white dog, one would be safe from the demon's spell when the mandrake was pulled from the ground.

Mandrake (Male and Female) Myths

The roots of mandrake bear a resemblance to the human form. Magically speaking, there are male and female mandrakes. The female form, its roots forked and looking like a pair of human legs, is the most sought after. The male, on the other hand, has a single root. It was the female form that was carved in the Middle Ages (in Germany and France) into manikins. It was believed that they brought good luck and wealth.

Mandrake in History, Some Rituals, Myths and Magic

Another 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 (Mendelson & Mello 82).

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" (Mendelson & Mello 82).

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 (Guiley 1989 223).

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 (Mendelson & Mello 81).

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 (Guiley 1989 223), and was believed to have been used in flying potions (Mendelson & Mello 78).

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 (Masello 84).

Mandrake in the 20th Century.

Little is known about what is currently being done in expanding the research of Mandrake as a healing and magic herb. It seems that most of its uses are still underground or undocumented. However there are two things that came to my attention that is worth mentioning here:

There is an on-going research project going on somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area about the medical uses of Mandrake in treating people with HIV and AIDS. Please contact the medical team at the University of San Francisco and/or other local clinics for more details on this project.

Mandrake has also become a name affiliated with magic and mystic powers thanks to the cartoon and comic strip character "Mandrake the Magician" created and developed by Lee Falk and Fred Fredericks.