On Mon, 2004-07-19 at 12:49, John Richard Smith wrote: > Marc Hultquist wrote: > > >What does Mandrake actually mean ? Was just thinking about it now and well > >while apache 2.x compiles I thought I would see what I could find out. Its > >unfortunately to slow for me to browse the net right now :\ > > > >Anyone care to shed some light on this ?
> > I believe it was used in english medieval times for medicinal purposes. > I expect it was an early ruling class version of coke. > > John Don't forget also that King Features sued Mandrake last year over the use of the name - 'Mandrake the Magician', seems everybody had been confusing the distribution with the comic strip. (That's why I couldn't get 'The Gimp' to work!). ******* http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/R/real_wizards/witches_t.html describes mandrake's use by witches - a witch I knew 30 years ago was using it (he ground it to a paste & rubbed it on his temples). "Through the ages, magic often involved taking drugs and seeing things. Where the druids had ergot and the shamans had mushrooms, witches had mandrake. The mandrake has long been regarded as having magical properties, perhaps because its forked root gives the plant a human-like shape. According to tradition, the plant would scream when it was pulled out of the ground. Consequently, mandrake was not dug up by hand; instead, a dog would be harnessed to the root and encouraged to drag it out of the ground. The mysteries of the mandrake are not limited to its shape. It is related to henbane and deadly nightshade. All three contain a number of very powerful alkaloids. When absorbed into the body, these chemical substances can cause double vision, hallucination and even coma. With their knowledge of the effects of mandrake, witches would have been able to dose themselves to produce the required effects without risking their lives. The witch's cauldron would have been used to boil the herbs in a fatty solution; this produced an ointment that the witch would smear on her body. A trance-like state would follow, with the witch experiencing sensations of flying - this is probably the origin of the familiar imagery of witches flying on broomsticks. Witches, like druids and shamans before them, derived some of their authority from their apparent ability to travel into another world. -- pm ____ The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on. Joseph Heller, Catch 22
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