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There lay exposed a strange little brown image, a root of the potato species distorted into human shape, with grotesquely human features, nose, lips, the indication of eyes, and hairy filaments falling from the sides of the head and forming a kind of beard upon the shrivelled jaw and chin. The creature appeared a distinct miniature effigy of a man. The shape of the limbs was clearly traceable, and two little brown tentacles of arms with rudimentary hands lay, one by the side and the other half over the breast. Bits of the earth from which it had been torn still clung in the indentations of the shape, and on the top of the head, mingling with the tufts of hair, were the shrivelled remains of a stalk which had been removed or had mouldered away. Marillier examined the thing with intense curiosity, at the same time revolted by its quasi-human appearance.

— Mrs Campbell Praed, The Insane Root : A Romance Of A Strange Country (1902)

The “insane root” to which Mrs Campbell Praed refers is likely to be a mandrake. The bifurcated root of the plant resembles a human figure, or so people have thought throughout the ages. There is a legend that when the mandrake-person is pulled from the ground, it shrieks in pain, and this cry is able to madden, deafen or even kill an unprotected human being. One way of pulling a mandrake out of the ground safely is given as follows: “A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this the root can be handled without fear.”

Being a miniature person, the mandrake root is thus a type of homunculus. The first homunculus was made by that old rascal Paracelsus out of a bag of bones, sperm, skin fragments and animal hair, these ingredients laid in the ground surrounded by horse manure for forty days, at which point the embryo formed. It seems likely that Paracelsus was making this up, as I tried it. I was looking forward to having a little homunculus running about the place, and was even thinking up a suitable name for it, but when I dug up the patch of manure there was no sign of any such being.

The mandrake itself features in another homunculus “recipe”. The root has to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and fed with milk, honey and blood. I was going to try this approach too, but I was unable to find a suitable dog.

A particularly thrilling method of creating a homunculus was given by Dr David Christianus of Giessen in the eighteenth century. He suggested taking an egg laid by a black hen, poking a tiny hole through the shell, replacing a bean-sized portion of the white with human sperm, sealing the opening with virgin parchment, and burying the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. Do this, he announced confidently, and after thirty days a miniature humanoid would emerge, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms. I am going to have a bash at this method next March and will let readers know how I get on.