#Mandrake mythology mac

It also induced feelings of love and affection. People believed the root could rejuvenate lost youth. Others think witches used mandrake root in their flying ointment. Some even believe the root housed a witch’s familiar! (Gillam, 2008: 20). Many believed the root grew within the power of dark earth spirits. Funny how they’re both linked to the folklore of the gallows.

They also believed you could cut the hand from a hanged criminal to make a hand of glory. But it’s interesting that people believed the mandrake grew below the gallows. The hand of glory now means something else. People kept it “as a charm to make coins multiply” (2000: 165). Jacqueline Simpson points out the first ‘hand of glory’ mentioned in English was actually the mandrake root (2000: 165). Hans Biedermann - Medicina Magica via Wikimedia Commons Some even think mandrake only grows in the dark. They also claim “t was common knowledge in medieval time that the mandrake grew under the gallows from the dripping semen of hanged men” (2003 : 91). Many think Circe’s potions contained mandrake. Mandrake ( mandragora officinarum) is another member of the solanaceae family, alongside henbane and deadly nightshade.Įrnst and Johanna Lehner cite the mandrake as “the oldest magic plant in botanical history”, noting its appearance in the Book of Genesis and Greek mythology (2003 : 91). It’s particularly useful for the invocation of Hecate. Hence ‘wolfsbane’. So it sometimes appears as either a cure for lycanthropy, or a means of protecting against werewolves.Į also cite it as a protective plant. In fact, the Romans banned its cultivation in gardens in 117AD after a spate of monkshood murders! (Baker, 2011: 9)Īncient Greek hunters dipped their arrows in aconite when hunting wolves. Perhaps its deadly effects were offset by the inclusion of its antidotes. Interestingly, both atropine ( deadly nightshade) and digitalis (foxgloves) act as antidotes to aconitine (Gillam, 2008: 4)! So why is it useful to witches?īecause aconite is so toxic, it doesn’t really have many witchy uses, aside from flying ointment. Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, pulled wolfsbane out of Cerberus’ saliva. What We Do in the Shadows (2014) is the best vampire/werewolf movie.Īccording to Amy Stewart, the Nazis even used it to poison bullets during the Second World War! (2010: 2).Īconite is named after Aconitus Hill, where Hercules fought Cerberus, guard dog of the Underworld. Anyone who was useless to the state was poisoned. Otherwise known as monkshood ( aconitum napellus) was the official poison on Ceos. If you want rain, it’s best to do the traditional British rain dance. It will also bring rain if you burn it outside, but be wary since the fumes are poisonous (1985: 137). However, Scott Cunningham believes henbane can be useful in love magic. In Greek mythology, the dead wore henbane wreaths as they walked along the river Styx. Some believe henbane can be used to communicate with the dead. Being able to gather suspected witches in one place would probably be quite comforting. Many believed witches could turn into hares on their way to gatherings. You might wonder what that has to do with witches. Apparently, putting henbane on a hareskin and leaving it in a field would gather all the local hares around it (2015: 252). But he also relates a weird belief found in a medieval manuscript.

#Mandrake mythology mac

Niall Mac Coitir notes a Welsh belief that children who fell asleep near henbane would never wake up again (2015: 252). Originally published by Wellcome Library,, under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.Two Scotsmen and a witch flying on a broomstick. The mandrake may have become just another botanical specimen, but its mystic past still holds an intoxicating allure. Stripped of the enchanting imagery and mythology found in herbals, references to the mandrake in 19th-century pharmacopoeias were sadly diminished. Once chemists could create these substances in the laboratory, they no longer needed to identify plants or prepare drugs from source, and plant lore became redundant. The alkaloids are a family of potent chemicals, still widely used in pharmaceuticals and responsible for the hallucinogenic and sedative (and toxic) effects of many other plants, including deadly nightshade. In 1889, the active chemical in the mandrake plant was isolated and identified as mandragorine, later confirmed as a mix of alkaloids. Photo courtesy Biodiversity Heritage Library, Creative Commons Herbier General de l’Amateur, Paris journal 1828-1835.