The mandrake

[wolfinthewood]

Last Week some Men being at work at Sir John Crelym’s, in Wotton-Park in Surrey, found under the Root of an Oak Tree a Mandrake, which was taken from thence alive, and lived about two Hours. A great Number of Persons of Distinction daily resort to Sir John’s Seat to see that great Curiosity, the like being never known in the Memory of Man.

from The Daily Gazetteer, Monday 19th March, 1739


There is a splendid medieval picture of a mandrake on David Badke’s fine Medieval Bestiary site.


tags: marvels

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Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

But didn't they all die when it screamed horribly on being pulled out of the ground?

There is a drawing in one of the C15th herbals at work of how you harvest mandrakes, involving a black dog and a man with his hands over his ears.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wondered about that. Perhaps they concluded that the fatal scream was a medieval superstition?

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

The notion that the safe way to pull up a mandrake was by tying a dog to it derives from Josephus, I believe.