Note 8 — Chapter XI · Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore

One seems to detect traces of the beliefs connected with the mandrake in the reference to the human-shaped roots of the 1000-year-old cypress tree. The mandrake was the plant of Aphrodite, and its root, which resembles the human form, was used medicinally; it has narcotic properties, and was believed also to be a medicine which promoted fertility, assisted birth, and caused youths and girls to fall in love with one another. According to mandrake-lore, the plant shrieks when taken from the earth, and causes the death of the one who plucks it.8 Dogs were consequently employed to drag it out of the ground, and they expired immediately. The “mandrake apple” is believed by Dr. Rendel Harris to have been the original “love apple”.9