Mandrakes and The hand of glory

[alshainofthenorth]

No: HPFGUIDX 96224

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "earendil_fr" <viviane at l...> 
wrote:
> Earendil:

> I don't know what a mandrake root looks like in the RW, whether it 
> looks more like a hand or a human body. But we all know for sure 
> that a mandrake root in the WW looks like a human/baby body. So I 
> suppose any connection between mandrake and the hand of glory would 
> be fortuitous.
> 
> 
> Earendil.

Alshain:
If you're still following the thread, Earendil, here's an idea about 
what a mandrake root looks like in real life: 
http://www.alchemy-works.com/mandragora_autumnalis.html
http://www.lycaeum.org/languages/finnish/psykoakt/kuvat/mandrake.gif
http://www.mind-surf.net/drogas/mandragora.htm
(Note: M. officinarum and M. autumnalis are two different varieties)
 
In the days when people used mandrake roots as amulets, you got a 
better price the more human-shaped the root was, so mandrake growers 
usually tampered a bit with the root and there was a lot of cheating 
going on. To my eye it doesn't look much like a human (except in 
medieval woodcuttings), nor like a hand. Just like any fleshy, forked 
root. 

BTW, JKR didn't add the lethal shriek either -- historians like 
Josephus and Pliny wrote that the only safe way to harvest a mandrake 
was to stuff one's ears with wax, loose the soil around the root, tie 
a dog to the plant and tempt it with a piece of meat from a safe 
distance. The dog would pull up the root, the root would shriek and 
the dog would drop dead. Wonder if a pair of earmuffs would be enough 
to protect a Muggle?

How sure do you need me to be? Of course it can't be proved beyond 
any doubt that 'mandragore' was corrupted to 'main de gloire' and 
later translated to 'hand of glory', you can't do that with 
etymology, folklore and history. But I think this is a reasonable 
assumption -- they have the same connection to the gallows and some 
connection with being used in treasure-hunting. Mandrake is also a 
powerful narcotic, and in hand-of-glory folklore, you used the light 
in the hand to keep people asleep while their house was burgled.  

Can I be 100 % certain that this is intended? No. As I said, I found 
it an interesting coincidence and one that could be significant. JKR 
has picked and chosen a lot among existing folklore with no qualms 
about changing things when it's necessary. She exaggerated the 
mandrake's faint resemblance to a human body for humorous purposes 
IMO (mandrakes getting acne and trying to get into each others' pots) 
to the point of readers questioning the morals of cutting them into 
pieces, and there's probably some as yet unknown purpose of the Hand 
of Glory that made changes necessary. Can't wait to see what that is.

Alshain