The Shrieking Plant That Brought Death To Those Who Heard it's Cry.
The mandrake was of the most sensational plants in medieval herbals because of the vaguely human form of its roots.
When uprooted it was said to give a shriek so terrible that it brought death to those responsible.
Wizards and others eager to use it in their potions were said to tie a hungry dog to the plant by means of a cord.
When the dog scrambled after a piece of meat the mandrake was pulled from the soil and it was the animal that was killed by the deadly cry.
In his Herbal to the Bible Thomas Newton wrote of the mandrake: ‘It’s supposed to be a creature having life, engendered under the earth of the seed of some dead person put to death by murder’
In Britain doctors used an extract of mandrake as a narcotic until the arrival of modern medicine.
Posted on Thu 23rd Jul 2009 10:55:00