A screaming root
by Sarah Das Gupta
beneath the moon’s watery spears
black hound needed
| Botanical name: | Mandragora officinarum |
| Popular names: | Satan’s Apple, Devil’s Turnip, Manroot, Circe’s Plant |
| Family: | Solanaceae |
| Origin: | Mediterranean, Middle East, North Africa. |
| Flower: | Purple–yellow-green, bell-shaped corolla, five petals, flowers grow from rosette of leaves. |
| Habitat: | Stony waste ground, edge of woodland, coastal areas |
The long taproot, shaped like a human form, was said to scream when pulled from the ground. Anyone hearing this would go mad. In Medieval times, it was believed the only way to harvest the plant was on a moonlit night and using a black dog with a cord attached to the plant to uproot it!
It was also believed that the mandrake first grew from the dripping ‘juices’ of a hanged man. This, by the medieval Doctrine of Signatures which taught that the shape and appearance of a plant linked it to parts of the human body, made the mandrake highly valued for specific ailments. However, the poisonous nature of the plant made its medicinal use difficult, as Harry Potter fans may know
The mandrake contains tropane alkaloids which give it narcotic, emetic, sedative and hallucinogenic properties. As early as the fourteenth century BC the plant is mentioned in cuneiform texts and subsequently in Arabic, Greek and Roman writing. It was said the root could be seen as a baby in form, albeit a rather ugly one. This gave rise to the belief that the plant helped childless women to conceive.
Mandrake roots were valuable and not surprisingly there were fraudsters at country fairs with oddly-shaped ‘mandrakes’ carved from turnip roots. It was even believed that these roots knew the sites of buried treasure. They would whisper the secret to their owner, if they trusted him. These beautiful lines from Shakespeare suggest Mandrake was still in use in the 16th century:
‘Give me to drink mandragora.
William Shakespeare,
That I might sleep out the great gap of time
My Antony is away.’
Anthony and Cleopatra, Act 1, Scene 1.
Further reading:
‘Pagan Portals – By Wolfsbane & Mandrake Root: The Shadow World of Plants and Their Poisons’, 2017, Draco, M., John Hunt Publishing Limited, ISBN: 1780995725.
‘Poisonous Plants in Great Britain’, 2008, Gillam, F., Wooden Books, ISBN: 1904263879.
‘Witch’s Garden: Plants in folklore, magic and traditional medicine’, 2020, Lawrence, S., Welbeck London, ISBN: 978178739436.
Author bio:
Sarah Das Gupta is a young 81 year old. Loves writing haiku and most forms of poetry. Is learning to walk after an accident. Main outside interests include equine sports. Lives near Cambridge, UK. Read other sciku by Sarah here.