The Mandrake Root
31st October 2025 by | Uncategorized
The Mandrake Root
At my desk this evening, the fire burns low, the hour deep, and the scent of herbs and wax thickens the air. On the shelf before me lies a small glass phial containing what the ancients once called Mandragora officinarum — the mandrake root. It is a curious thing, twisted and gnarled, resembling the shape of a tiny person, and in that likeness men once saw a soul.
In the Middle Ages, the mandrake was thought to scream when torn from the earth — a cry so dreadful it could kill. To harvest it safely, legend told that one must tie the root to a black dog, then retreat beyond earshot as the creature pulled it free. Such tales, half science and half spell, remind us how thin the line was between medicine and magic.
Physicians brewed it as a narcotic; witches treasured it for its power over sleep and desire. It was said to grow where no prayer could reach, beneath the gallows of the condemned — the child of death and earth entwined.
Tonight, as the flame flickers and shadows lengthen across my desk, I cannot help but think how the mandrake endures — not as poison, nor as cure, but as a whisper from the dark soil itself, where myth and memory still take root.
Tagline:
Gemma Morris-Conway
The past is never silent
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