297 – Mandrake

Physical description:

4 pieces of mandrake root: two almost complete large roots, and two much smaller pieces of root.

Museum classification:

Herbs & Healing

Information:

Original text by Cecil Williamson: 'Here we have two sections of mandrake root, one of the stock items to be found in a witch's trunk. That most mysterious of plants full of the dream inducing essences so vital to many a witchcraft spell.'
Purchased from Heath & Heather Ltd, St Albans, Herts. in 1953.
Scarborough Museum has some pieces of "mandrake root" (in fact bryony root) which were used as a charm for fertility and to ease childbirth (London, 1924). (Information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library.)
The Cuming Museum has a "mandrake root" (again, in fact black bryony root), carved into the shape of a woman and child, obtained by Edward Lovett in Barking in 1912, from a Romany who told him that it had screamed when pulled from the ground.

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Plant

Copyright ownership:

Copyright to The Museum of Witchcraft Ltd.

Original text by Cecil Williamson: 'Here we have two sections of mandrake root, one of the stock items to be found in a witch's trunk. That most mysterious of plants full of the dream inducing essences so vital to many a witchcraft spell.'
Purchased from Heath & Heather Ltd, St Albans, Herts. in 1953.
Scarborough Museum has some pieces of "mandrake root" (in fact bryony root) which were used as a charm for fertility and to ease childbirth (London, 1924). (Information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library.)
The Cuming Museum has a "mandrake root" (again, in fact black bryony root), carved into the shape of a woman and child, obtained by Edward Lovett in Barking in 1912, from a Romany who told him that it had screamed when pulled from the ground.