How do Mandrakes help in reporduction?

Question

What s the Mandrake's Supposed magick ability to aid fertility?

Answer 1

"In Genesis 30, Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah finds mandrakes in the field. Rachael, Jacob's second wife, the sister of Leah, is desirous of the mandrakes and she barters with her sister for them. The trade offered by Rachael is for Leah to spend the next night in Jacob's bed. Soon after this Rachel, who was previously barren, gives birth to a son, Joseph. There are classical Jewish commentaries who point out that mandrakes help barren woman to conceive a child.

Mandrake in Hebrew is דודאים, meaning “love plant”. It was believed by Asian cultures to ensure conception. Most interpreters hold Mandragora officinarum to be the plant intended in Gen., 30, 14 (love-philtre), and Cant., vii, 13 (smell of the mandrakes). Numbers of other plants have been suggested, as bramble-berries, Zizyphus Lotus, L., the sidr of the Arabs, the banana, the lily, the citron, and the fig. But none of these renderings is supported by satisfactory evidence." I hope it helps.

Answer 2

Actually it was the root. Often the root which is somewhat carrot like is forked which gives it a vaguely human appearance. From this shape it was ascribed magical powers including those of an aphrodisiac and fertility potion.

The poet John Donne makes a somewhat sarcastic reference to this in "Song":

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

Answer 3

To much to list .

Chapter III: The Traits and Practice of Vampirism
Many are the superstitions which cluster around the mandrake or ... No one must dare uproot the mandrake for it moans and shrieks so fearfully that the ...
www.sacred-texts.com/goth/vkk/vkk05.htm

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Answer 4

ancients believed the mandrake fruit was an aphrodisiac.