The mandrake is simply a plant with a vaguely humanoid shape, but coupled with the ability of the plant to bring about sleep, the herb gained significant magical associations (Carter, 144). Frazer's suggestion that the action is a kind of "charge" (395) sounds both mysterious and divine.
Neither source states exactly what particular action actually kills the animal. Josephus ties this tale to the description of the herb he calls Baaras, which has been identified by many scholars as the mandrake, by stating that the animal to uproot the herb should be a dog. BCE) we learn that whoever uproots the mandrake must die (Frazer, 393). In Genesis (largely accepted as being written in the 6th or 5th c.
#ACTUAL MANDRAKE ROOT HOW TO#
The Bible reveals the most famous quality of the mandrake: how to collect it using an animal tied to its roots. describes the highly anesthetic qualities of the plant, stating that it is used useful during surgery by causing a “dead sleep.” In fact, the use of mandrake as an anesthetic continued until the eventual adoption of anesthetic ether as late as the mid 1800’s. Interestingly, Hecate was often associated with dogs, an animal we shall soon see is strongly associated with mandrakes during harvest.ĭioscorides, in his famous materia medica of the 1st c. Lee claimed that the plant has been identified as the Corycian crocus (281), but its description also matches the plant called the male mandrake by Pedanius Dioscorides (Book IV, 76). And beneath, the dark earth shook and bellowed when the Titanian root was cut and the son of Iapetus himself groaned, his soul distraught with pain (Book III, 828).īased on the description above, this is a plant known by the ancient Greeks to be an anesthetic against “blazing fire.” It required a ceremonial sacrifice and when picked would cause the earth to shake and Prometheus to groan. It shot up first- born when the ravening eagle on the rugged flanks of Caucasus let drip to the earth the blood-like ichor of tortured Prometheus. If a man should anoint his body therewithal, having first appeased the Maiden, the only-begotten, with sacrifice by night, surely that man could not be wounded by the stroke of bronze nor would he flinch from blazing fire but for that day he would prove superior both in prowess and in might. and Medea meanwhile took from the hollow casket a charm which men say is called the charm of Prometheus. She spake, and brought a casket wherein lay many drugs, some for healing, others for killing. BC, when Appollonius of Rhodes, who wrote the story of Jason and the Argonauts, revealed a plant that sprang up from the ground where the juices of the damaged liver of Prometheus dripped onto the ground. The lore of the mandrake plant may originate in the 3rd c. This poses a serious problem since the mandrake plant grows only around the Mediterranean, having a distribution no further north than the mountains of Italy. None of these words directly refer to any plant except for the mandrake plant. In contemporary usage, the german word for the mandrake plant is “alraune.” All of the living Germanic languages have a similar word.
Consequently, exposure of unadulterated alraun lore has become impossible. The lore of the mandrake has become so notorious that any original alraun lore has become potentially obscured through cultural marriage with the mandrake.The alraun has a uniquely Germanic name despite that the traditional alraun plant - the mandrake - does not grow in any Germanic area, signaling possible confusion between the mandrake and another plant more common to Germanic latitudes.I have therefore come to these conclusions, which I will discuss: But during my study, I have come to question a couple of connections that are unclear. An alraun is a magickal charm composed of a plant part, typically a root and traditionally the root of the mandrake plant, that is used as a corporeal domicile by a helping familiar spirit.īecause of the connection between them, any reading or research about the alraun invariably forces one to research the mandrake.
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