mortals call also Devil's eye and Sorcerer's violet for it is much used in spells and enchantments. Felons are crowned with a garland of this herb on their way to the gallows for it signifies death. If a mortal plucks it from a grave, the spirit of the corpse who is buried beneath that sod shall haunt him to his own death.
The leaves laid upon a boil will draw its venom. The green stems bound about the leg shall relieve the cramp and chewed shall ease the aching of a tooth or stop the bleeding of the mouth or nose.
But the plant is also much used in love potions. If man and woman eat periwinkle, houseleek and powdered worms together at a meal it shall kindle the love between them.
The Mandrake's Herbal
The Mandrake's Tale
You've no doubt been told that mandrakes scream when they are dragged from the earth. That's not entirely true. There is a scream certainly, long and agonizing, which can drive a human to self-murder just to escape the pain of it. But it is not we, the mandrakes, who cry out; it is our mother, the earth. Every woman moans and shrieks in childbirth when her baby is torn from her womb, so why should our mother not scream in pain when we are dragged squirming from the warmth and darkness of her belly into the bitter light? As they writhe in labour, mortal women curse the men who got them with child, but the curse of our mother is the most terrible of them all, for her curse lasts a hundred generations.
Our fathers never witness our births for their eyes have long since been plucked out by the ravens. Our fathers were a bad lot — murderers, traitors, forgers, warlocks, rich men, poor men, beggar men, thieves. Each of them danced on the gallows to pay for the pleasures they took in this world. You will no doubt tell me that innocent men too are hanged. But I will ask you this — is there any man alive or dead without guilty secrets? And as for those who condemn a man to be hanged, are they not the worst villains of them all?
But you must be the judge of guilt and innocence, sin and sinner. We mandrakes make no judgment for those you pronounce guilty are, after all, our own dear fathers. For the fact is when men are hanged, innocent or guilty, their semen, that salty white milk, falls on to the earth and there on that very spot we spring up, white and black, male and female, the monstrous offspring of the dead, the familial image of their dark souls. Yes, if you could only glimpse those wizened and twisted souls, you'd see there's no mistaking I am my father's daughter.
Why men should ejaculate in the throes of death is a mystery even to me. Perhaps death really is the consummation of life, or maybe it's the last act of the body desperate to bequeath a life that will go on even as its own is obliterated. But I like to believe it is a final one-fingered gesture of defiance at their executioners, the only obscene gesture they can make since their hands are tightly bound behind them. Whatever the reason, felons with their dying gasp impregnate our mother and so we, the mandrakes, are conceived.
Semi-human, demi-gods, they call us. Demi-gods? Semi, demi, less than, partial, almost — that, if you ask me, is a hemi- insult. We are gods, totally, fully complete. How could it be otherwise, when we are fathered by eternal sin and born of Mother Earth who was old when time began? We are the immortals and the mortal men who tear us up are mere midwives to our quickening.
You've heard of our powers, I've no doubt. How we can bestow children on the barren and make a man besotted with a maid. Ask that Jewess, Leah, if we did not bring Jacob to her bed and that very night get her with child? But remember this — we can also strike a woman barren and tear apart the most faithful of lovers. We can soothe the cruellest pain. We can conjure demons straight from hell. We can raise a woman to great wealth and cast a rich man into beggary. We can prolong the agony of those who beg to die, and snuff out the breath of those who plead to live. We can do all this for you.