Judika Illes - The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

Because it’s the intact root that desired, it must be pulled from Earth without damaging it. Various legends and traditions sprang up including one that suggests that pulling mandrakes is the equivalent of a game of tug-of-war. If you fail to dislodge the mandrake, it might pull you in return, causing you to disappear into the depths of the Earth.

According to another legend, mandrake screams when it is pulled; hearing the scream is fatal. Another version suggests that the first one to pull up the root dies. All kinds of complex machinations for harvesting mandrake developed: one had to stuff up one’s ears with wax, tie a dog to the plant and then somehow induce him to jump away with such force that the entire root is pulled out of Earth in one piece. This practice allegedly kills the dog. Once this sacrifice has been made, the plant is believed safe to handle and use and exists as an object of wish fulfillment. (These are all superstitions, although they are based on tradition: see below. Mandrakes are grown in nurseries today; no dogs are killed during the harvest nor are there any other mandrake-induced fatalities involved in the harvest. Let’s just say that if any dog ever died during mandrake harvests—and these legends may have no basis whatsoever in fact—the mandrake’s scream isn’t what killed it.)

A later legend that developed in places where mandrake was considered diabolical suggests that it grew only at crossroads, the home of the devil, or underneath gallows—usually erected at crossroads—where the mandrake was nourished by emanations from the corpse. (One cheerful tradition suggests that mandrake isn’t any ordinary plant root but is, in fact, a hanged man’s congealed urine or semen.) Along those lines, it was believed that mandrake’s form reflected that of the dead man, especially if he died a virgin or lived as a congenital thief. (These legends inspired the German novel Alrauna by H. H. Ewers, which in turn inspired no less than five film adaptations. See CREATIVE ARTS:Literature.)

These superstitions are rooted in metaphysical beliefs that had become distorted and demonized. Frequently they are cover-ups for pagan traditions, simultaneously beloved (or at least the potential results are desired) and feared. The machinations with the dog, for instance, may be cover-up for a canine sacrifice that was once intrinsic to the harvest.

The tradition that the mandrake kills the one who initially pulls it from the ground may be based on a Jewish legend (recounted among Louis Ginzburg’s multi-volume Legends of the Jews ) that Reuben found the mandrake lying near a dead donkey. (The donkey’s link to the mandrake has sexual connotations that aren’t immediately grasped today.) Interestingly, according to Transylvanian Romany tradition, the root of an orchid used similarly to mandrake is gathered in the same manner by attaching a dog to it. The dog doesn’t die but is encouraged to lunge away by luring it with donkey’s meat.

In Poland, mandrake was gathered by laying bread and money on the ground. The root was carefully pulled up; the offerings were laid in the resulting hole as payment and the hole carefully covered with Earth. The root was bathed in milk, carefully dried, and then wrapped in silk and carried home in a box. In Abruzzi, Italy, mandrake, like other magical plants, was believed best harvested on Midsummer’s Eve.

Sometimes a living plant was desired, not just the root. Having a living mandrake plant on one’s property allegedly brings great fortune, health, and happiness. However, one must take care in transplanting it—any injury to the plant allegedly results in insanity for the guilty party.

See ANIMALS:Donkeys; DICTIONARY:Alraune; Mojo.

Other names: Witch’s Branch; Witch’s Broom

Mistletoe is native to a region stretching from Northern Europe to Northwest Africa and east all the way to Japan. Wherever it is found, mistletoe is considered holy, sacred, powerful, and magical.

Mistletoe is unique: it was understood as a plant that wasn’t a plant—a sort of magical plant. Mistletoe doesn’t grow in Earth; it’s a parasite that attaches itself to trees and eventually may kill them. (Identification of mistletoe with witches wasn’t always meant positively. Other inferences were also intended.)

Mistletoe’s poisonous berries look like tiny golden full moons. In German, these berries are known as “ witch’s berries .”

Mistletoe may be the golden bough that inspired Sir James Frazer’s influential book of that name. Mistletoe was sacred to the Greeks and Romans, who believed that it originated when lightning struck trees. For them, mistletoe represented life energy and generative, magic power. If Frazer is correct, mistletoe was sacred to Diana, Queen of Witches.

The Celts nicknamed mistletoe “ thunderbroom ,” uniting male and female sexual symbolism. No other botanical is as profoundly associated with Druid magic. The Druids believed that it was inauspicious for mistletoe to ever touch the ground and so created an elaborate method of harvest, which involved plucking it from the tree, using a golden sickle, with nets to catch it before it landed.

In Germanic tradition mistletoe is under the dominion of Freya, and brings blessings of love and fertility. Of course, Freya has two sides: she’s a love goddess but also a death goddess.

Mistletoe’s most famous appearance in mythology occurs when it is the object responsible for the death of Lord Balder. Balder has disturbing dreams; his imminent death is indicated. To forestall this tragedy, his mother, Frigg, travels about the Earth seeking assurances from every living being that they will never harm her son. Because mistletoe is so small and puny, she doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask. The moral of the story is an important one in herbalism: the most innocuous plants sometimes are the most lethal.

Mistletoe is used in various medicinal preparations that can only be safely prepared or administered by a master herbalist. Because of its pagan associations, and because of this needed skill, mistletoe became associated solely with witchcraft medicine and the magical arts, except for once a year on Christmas Eve, when this formerly sacred plant is hung from the ceiling to stimulate kissing, love, and romance.

See DIVINE WITCH:Freya.

Other names: Motherwort; The Red Goat

Caution! Mugwort is not safe for pregnant women or for those actively attempting to conceive. Mugwort Essential Oil, also known as Armoise, its French name, is unsafe for everyone and is potentially fatal. Dried or fresh mugwort herb (the whole thing, not some concentration) is safe for occasional use by most adults.

Mugwort’s Latin name refers to it as common or vulgar Artemisia, as if any member of that plant family could possibly be common or vulgar. They are named in honor of the goddess Artemis. The most famous explanation is that she gave the plant as a gift to the physician centaur Chiron, who tutored Achilles and many other renowned Greek heroes. However another version suggests that the plant is named after Artemis because most of its medicinal uses involve female reproduction over which she has dominion.

Mugwort has been used to stimulate menstruation, whether to induce fertility or to terminate pregnancy.

Mugwort has historically been used to harmonize menstrual cycles with lunar cycles. If one understands that Artemis shares the same essence as the moon, then one is harmonizing oneself with the goddess as well.