Ok, so in real life, the Mandrake is a plant (belonging to the 'Nightshades' classification strand. Pow.) whose roots have long been used in the practice of magic rituals. It is a wholly unimpressive thing, except for the fact that the roots often closely resemble figures of humans, or even children.
The impressive stuff is how far practitioners of the dark arts have taken the backstory with these things. According to the legend, when the root is dug up it screams and kills all who hear it.
Some of the Magic folklore and writings surrounding the Mandrake, are incredible (and disturbing). Here's what one "History and Practice of Magic" book, by Paul Christian instructs us to do:
Would you like to make a Mandragora? Then find a root of the plant called bryony. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man's grave. For thirty days water it with cow's milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the thirty-first day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man's winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere.
...Anyone want to make one with me?
