Why choose to talk on Mandrakes? Well, I wanted to talk about something interesting, something different... and above all I wanted anyone who took the trouble to come and listen to me to go away feeling they had learned something new.
There's always a temptation when you do a talk - any talk - to simply reminisce. While this can be interesting, I do feel that at these events it's lovely to challenge the audience a bit, to make them feel that hearing the talk was worth while.
So, with that in mind, I chose the Mandrake and Flying ointment.
My own personal pagan path I call Seeking the Green. It's all about balancing light and dark, good and bad. I feel that you can’t really appreciate the light unless you’ve first found yourself in a very dark place. And magic is all about these opposites, these polarities – especially when you’re using plants.
You’ll often come across plants that can both harm and heal… puzzling at first, until get to know them better. For example, Rue contains Vitamin P. For centuries it was used as a general tonic. In strong sunlight however, it can bring some people out in blisters if they so much as touch it.
Then there’s the humble potato which most of us can eat without any side effects. However if you ate the fruits of that plant you would be very ill indeed. Or there’s rhubarb – the stalks are great made into a fruit crumble, but don’t eat the leaves or you’re likely to end up in hospital.
And how many people know the murky background of the Nutmeg, a spice you can buy in virtually any supermarket or corner shop? Yes, you can dust it on desserts or bedtime drinks, add it to spicy biscuits and cakes and it’s harmless. Yet it was once regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac, and Cleopatra used it with mandrake to seduce Mark Antony. But if you ate the equivalent of just two nutmegs it would kill you! Since learning that little snippet of information I have never looked at an egg custard in quite the same light!
If you ask most people to name a single magical plant, they will tell you the same thing – Mandrake. Most people have heard of the Mandrake even if they haven’t seen it – because it doesn’t grow well in northern Europe so you’re unlikely to find them on offer in your local garden centre. And this of course is part of it’s attraction – it’s rarity. People feel it must be powerful simply because they can’t get hold of it easily. Yet there are plenty of equally good alternatives lying around your local supermarket!
The reason the mandrake is so well known is that it’s infiltrated our magical consciousness. In other words, it’s become synonymous with magic. Partly this is because it has both physical and magical properties – it’s a narcotic, for a start - and of course it’s been around for thousands of years.
The Mandrake even makes a few appearances in the Old Testament. But eventually, with the coming of Christianity the plant acquired a more sinister reputation. It wasn’t alone in this. The early church tried to Christianise a lot of plants…. And demonised those that wouldn’t or couldn’t be adapted. So the Mandrake was nicknamed Devil’s Apple and Devil’s Candle, ‘Witch’s Herb,’ and ‘Hag’s Manikin.’ A Mannikin, by the way, was also another term for elves or dwarves.
Mandrake berries were sometimes called love apples, and were used to enhance virility, help women conceive, cure sterility in both sexes and make its owner wealthy. Basically it was a bit like taking Viagra and then winning the Lottery! No wonder it was so popular.
But what makes the Mandrake so fascinating was the way its root often resembled a human body. There are all sorts of theories about why it looked so human. Some believed the Mandrakes were really in a no man’s land between the animal and plant kingdoms. Others suggested Mandrakes were the first creatures to live on earth.
Male roots were more common (hence the name Mandrake) but there were Womandrakes as well. [At this point in the talk I showed some pictures I had copied from early herbals showing what people thought they looked like.]
All sorts of rituals grew up around the Mandrake. You had to gather it in a certain way because its screams would drive you mad, or use a dog to pull the plant out… it was said to shrink from being touched… even that it would run away. Some people actually lassooed their mandrakes! And these are ancient beliefs, not something cooked up by the Inquisition in the late Middle Ages.
And yet, in spite of all these risks, first from the plant and then later from the Church authorities, people still went hunting Mandrakes. Why?
In Part 2 I hope to be able to explore the reasons further....
