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On the Origin of Species: Oddish (view source)
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The myths varied and became greatly embellished over the years, but a few features came up time and time again. Mandrakes were said to be connected with dark spirits of the earth, and so had to be handled with extreme caution. Uprooting a mandrake was fraught with danger: it could only be pulled from the ground by the light of the moon, and even then, the act was liable to kill whoever uprooted it. Because of this, many alchemists' guides recommended tying the plant to a dog, and getting the dog to do it instead. The dog would be killed, but once uprooted, the plant could be used safely. Other versions of the myth – which are referenced in the ''{{wp|Harry Potter}}'' franchise among many others – state that a mandrake would scream at anybody trying to uproot it, and this scream could be fatal if precautions weren't made to protect the ears. As silly as all of this sounds, most myths have some sort of basis in reality, and we should bear in mind that mandrakes ''are'' very poisonous. Anyone who uprooted one with the intention of consuming it was quite likely to end up dead, and so we can see how these stories might have developed. | The myths varied and became greatly embellished over the years, but a few features came up time and time again. Mandrakes were said to be connected with dark spirits of the earth, and so had to be handled with extreme caution. Uprooting a mandrake was fraught with danger: it could only be pulled from the ground by the light of the moon, and even then, the act was liable to kill whoever uprooted it. Because of this, many alchemists' guides recommended tying the plant to a dog, and getting the dog to do it instead. The dog would be killed, but once uprooted, the plant could be used safely. Other versions of the myth – which are referenced in the ''{{wp|Harry Potter}}'' franchise among many others – state that a mandrake would scream at anybody trying to uproot it, and this scream could be fatal if precautions weren't made to protect the ears. As silly as all of this sounds, most myths have some sort of basis in reality, and we should bear in mind that mandrakes ''are'' very poisonous. Anyone who uprooted one with the intention of consuming it was quite likely to end up dead, and so we can see how these stories might have developed. | ||
[[File:Mandrake.jpg|200px|thumb|An illustration of the mythical mandrake from the ''Naples Dioscurides'', a 7th century work based on Dioscorides' ''De Materia Medica'']]In medieval times, it seems that many scientists weren't sure whether to treat mandrakes as plants or | [[File:Mandrake.jpg|200px|thumb|An illustration of the mythical mandrake from the ''Naples Dioscurides'', a 7th century work based on Dioscorides' ''De Materia Medica'']]In medieval times, it seems that many scientists weren't sure whether to treat mandrakes as plants or as animals, and they seem to have been regarded as both. A similar situation occurred with {{wp|cotton}}: when imported cotton first arrived in Europe, people struggled to believe that the wool-like substance could have been harvested from a plant, and so cotton plants were depicted as strange {{wp|Vegetable Lamb of Tartary|half-plant, half-sheep hybrids}}. Likewise, one popular view of mandrakes was that they represented a sort of intermediate stage between plants and humans. | ||
The idea of mandrakes as semi-human actually continued, in the minds of some observers, up until the nineteenth century. In his 1855 book, ''{{wp|Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie}}'' (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic), the French occultist {{wp|Eliphas Lévi}} seemed to be trying to tie the mandrake myth in with the scientific community's changing ideas about the origin of humans: | The idea of mandrakes as semi-human actually continued, in the minds of some observers, up until the nineteenth century. In his 1855 book, ''{{wp|Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie}}'' (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic), the French occultist {{wp|Eliphas Lévi}} seemed to be trying to tie the mandrake myth in with the scientific community's changing ideas about the origin of humans: | ||