Mandragora

Gerry Quinn · 30 Nov 2011, 16:32 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:32:16 -0000
Subject: (urth) Mandragora
In-Reply-To: <4ED6485F.2020404 at verizon.net>
References: <mailman.230596.1322660169.24088.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net><20111130142055.3288.qmail at server281.com>
	<4ED6485F.2020404 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <22AD5339F77E4448809127268099F843@Rover>

From: David Stockhoff 
On 11/30/2011 9:20 AM, Brian wrote: 
    Since we all agree Wikipedia is never wrong ;), I'll just stick with their definitions.  Mandragora is the genus of the plant mandrake, which often has a somewhat man-shaped root.  It is also the name of a type of demon.  These demons are little dolls given to a sorceror by the Devil for the purpose of consulting "in time of need".  They are thought to be related to the "fetish, which is nothing else than a dwelling-place made by a shaman or medicine-man for the reception of any wandering spirit who chooses to take up his abode therein."

    Admittedly, Wikipedia has this last quote labeled as "citation needed", but this does sound remarkably like a spare body.

  Very nice. And again, this points me to BLS/BSS, and their multitude of riders and ridden. Regardless of how much detail Wolfe had worked out by the time he finished BNS, the concept plainly was fully developed even though BNS *seems* to have little possession going on.

Except that Severian talked to the mandragora in question, and there was no indication of possession in the sense used elsewhere in the Sun series.  One might postulate a hybrid spirit like Mani in Wizard Knight.  But the homunculus itself claimed to be a deformed fetus, preserved artificially in a semi-living state.

As for Typhon, I think he?d find a homunculus in a jar a bit confining.  That is, if he weren?t dead a couple of thousand years anyway.

- Gerry Quinn
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