I constantly get asked why I named the shop Mandrake Tattoo. No, Mandrake is not my name and NO I’m definitely, DEFINITELY not a Harry Potter fan. I was looking for a name for the shop that had some direct relation to my roots as well as was in tune with my personality which sometimes can be a little obtuse. In short the Mandrake plant has some very wacky, creepy history written about it which fascinated me. Also, the mandrake Plant is the plant of love, luck and money … three of my favorite things.
Mandrake is the common name for members of the plant genus Mandragora belonging to the nightshades family (Solanaceae). Because mandrake contains deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids such as hyoscyamine and the roots sometimes contain bifurcations causing them to resemble human figures, their roots have long been used in magic rituals, today also in neopagan religions such as Wicca and Germanic revivalism religions such as Odinism.
The mandrake, Mandragora officinarum, is a plant called by the Arabs luffâh, or beid el-jinn ("djinn's eggs"). The parsnip-shaped root is often branched. This root gives off at the surface of the ground a rosette of ovate-oblong to ovate, wrinkled, crisp, sinuate-dentate to entire leaves, 5 to 40 centimetres (2.0 to 16 in) long, somewhat resembling those of the tobacco-plant. A number of one-flowered nodding peduncles spring from the neck bearing whitish-green flowers, nearly 5 centimetres (2.0 in) broad, which produce globular, succulent, orange to red berries, resembling small tomatoes, which ripen in late spring. All parts of the mandrake plant are poisonous. The plant grows natively in southern and central Europe and in lands around the Mediterranean Sea, as well as on Corsica.
Mandragora plant
According to the legend, when the root is dug up it screams and kills all who hear it. Literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety. For example Josephus (c. 37 AD Jerusalem – c. 100) gives the following directions for pulling it up:
A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this the root can be handled without fear.
It was a common folklore in some countries that mandrake would only grow where the semen of a hanged man had dripped on to the ground; this would appear to be the reason for the methods employed by the alchemists who "projected human seed into animal earth". In Germany, the plant is known as the Alraune: the novel (later adapted as a film) Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers is based on a soulless woman conceived from a hanged man's semen, the title referring to this myth of the Mandrake's origins.
Definitions of mandrake on the Web:
A mandragora, a kind of tiny demon immune to fire; Any plant of the genus Mandragora, certain of which are said to have medicinal properties; the curiously shaped root of these plants has been likened to the shape of a little man, and thus, has attained some mythic significanceen.wiktionary.org/wiki/mandrake
The mandrake plant has properties that bring on sleep or reduce pain. Many folklore traditions link the plant with sexual behavior. ...www.mythencyclopedia.com/Pa-Pr/Plants-in-Mythology.html
A small plant; it was believed that eating its root or fruit would make a woman more likely to have children.www.americanbible.org/absport/news/item.php
