Tag Archives: mandrake root

30,000 Curious Came to See the Show

What a mad, grand day for Lita Burke’s blog. 30,000 views. Smiles from Lita for all of you lovely and curious Gentle Readers who visited.

Suppose there is a most interesting street where the houses look like books. Inside these houses are places where fey-folk fairies play, wizards sing their magic, and Enchanters give kisses. Anyone can walk down this street, and glimpse at these fantasy worlds through the windows. Lita’s blog is that street. 30,000 Gentle Readers have already walked its twisty cobblestone ways. Here are a few of the wonders in the windows.

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

All aboard now for a trip to a plate-shaped ocean world, where islands float far above the sea. Dragons fly the sky, and clockworks creations inhabited by minor demons join human and elf-kind magicians in absurd adventures.

A proper wizard uses an airship to visit these floating lands. Others of more modest means use Ornithopters designed by Leonardo’s Airborne Contraptions.

Join in the sometime fun, sometimes scary, but always delightful adventures of Wizard Kadmeion, his half-elf assistant Sir Bright, and their friends in the fantasy world of Clockpunk Wizard. Get your first ride on Kadmeion’s airship, and meet a special dog that digs deadly mandrake roots in Forever Boy.

Unicorn Herd

Unicorn Island

There is a floating island in the royal elf-kind archipelago that has a herd of unicorns. They run in the steppe lands, and gather in the border forests.

The unicorns shed the husks of their alicorns, and the elf-kind collect these precious magical artifacts. An illness has stricken the herd. Lady Luck’s young daughter, with her favorite wizard in tow, visits the unicorns. She learns how to talk to the birds to get to the bottom of the unicorn illness in Glitter Ponies.

Enchanters’ Luscious Magic

Fire and a Hidden Spell Book

Lanith, a magical curios merchant, loses her shop and home to a mysterious fire. Her magician husband Tredan has gone missing.

The morally strict Church magicians, and the Enchanters with their luscious magic that they distribute with kisses, are in constant battle to do whatever is necessary to gain the upper hand in their world of Sye. She learns that her husband wrote a powerful spell book that will subjugate the Enchanters’ magic. His book sits in the middle of the decades-old conflict between the Church and the Enchanters.

With only her dragonette and the clothes on her back, she enlists the help of the Enchanters, and unravels her husband’s life-long secrets. His kidnapping tale starts in Wrath, and Lanith’s story continues in Tredan’s Bane.

Also see:

Dramatis Personæ: Furgo

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The Dramatis Personæ is the roster of conjurers and sentient magical creatures staying in the many rooms, grottos, and byways of Lita’s castle. Here is an entry in the guest book for the Clockpunk Wizard Wing.

Wizard Familiar Furgo

Furgo [fər ɡō] proper noun, c.1400; Sanskrit pāti < Greek pōma < Old High Gr fuotar < Gr fuerre < An-Fr furrer < ME furren; c.900; Gr gehen < Old High Gr gēn < OE gān < ME gon; also Furgo-boy, Furgo-dog

Profession: Animal familiar for Wizard Kadmeion and Assistant Bright
Race: Sentient Magical Creature Cynanthrope (dog/human shapeshifter), male, 9-16 years old for human form, middle age for dog form, and an intermediate combination form
Appearance: brown eyes, black/brown hair, slender build
Full Name: Furgo
Formal Title: Wizard Familiar
Honorifics: Sir Wizard Familiar
Education: No formal schooling; human intellectual abilities acquired through magical binding to a wizard
Milieu: Furgo is a denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world

Dog-to-Human Shapeshifting

Furgo is a rare dog-to-human shapeshifter rescued by Wizard Kadmeion during a mandrake root extraction on Holcomb Island. Furgo’s default form is a small black dog. He has a rarely used intermediate form of a brownie-sized fur-covered human.

Furgo can alter the apparent age of his human appearance, presenting a handsome lad of nine to sixteen years old. Because Furgo has an unusual situation with his human soul, he cannot age beyond his teenager years. This is another rare magical state called “Forever Boy.”

The cynanthrope’s caretakers sometimes use the names “Furgo-boy” or “Furgo-dog” to summon Furgo’s requested form. Kadmeion enchanted the cynanthrope to remember a silly spell that empowers Furgo to switch forms at will. The cynanthrope willingly wears a wizard’s medallion to display his Familiar role, and to focus his benefactor’s magic.

A Cynanthrope Retains Dog Traits in Its Human Form

While in human form, Furgo retains his dominant dog traits, namely loyalty, protectiveness, and happy nature. When in his dog form, Furgo retains some of his human intellect. In all his forms, Furgo’s most remarkable trait is his adorable puppy-dog eyes.

See Treasure Under Furgo-Boy’s Bed, Go Fer and Furgo, and Bestiarum Vocabulum: Cynanthrope for more about Furgo and shapeshifting.

Find out more about Furgo’s many adventures as Wizard Kadmeion’s familiar in the Clockpunk Wizard stories:

Strange Case of the Half-Boy Half-Dog Baffles Scientists: A Clever Wizard Explains

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Mandrake

Lita’s Magic Show: Mandrakes and Minor Demons

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A Minor Demon in a Mandrake Root

Enchantments dazzle in the forest near Lita’s castle–a place where wandering wizards pull up their colorful carts and put on magic shows.

An elderly dog jumps up on a stool. She is an unattractive mutt with faded brown spots and a drooling mouth.

But her clear eyes shimmer with magic. She taps her paw and conjures an image of another pup, a sleek and handsome wizard’s familiar with a wonderful trick.

“Minor demons animate mandrake roots in this wizard’s enchantment,” the old dog says. Her voice is a lovely alto and rich with marvels. “The flora looks like little people, and the plants walk and talk. Even the dogs can weave enchantments in this fantasy world, but the price is oh, so dear.”

This canine spell weaver shows us how a mandrake root digger dog flees his cruel master, befriends a wizard, and discovers his shapeshifting magic.

The dog begins her story.

Next time, a sorceress gives us a cautionary tale about Desire and a Spell Book.

Last time, a wizardling told us about Harsh Words and a Familiar.

See another magic show where a mage told us about a Dire Secret and a Dragonette.

Announcing the Release of Forever Boy

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Everyone is partying at Lita’s place until our paws turn white.

It’s time to break out the silly party hats and set your dessert on fire. Clockpunk wizardry is here.

I am pleased to announce today’s release of Forever Boy. In the novelette Forever Boy, a dog flees his cruel master, befriends a wizard, and discovers his shapeshifting magic.

Forever Boy is the first story in the Clockpunk Wizard series. These stories feature Wizard Kadmeion and his clockworks assistant Sir Bright. They are magicians-for-hire in a world of airships, floating islands, and homunculi powered by minor demons.

Magic in the Clockpunk Wizard world is twisty, inverse, and just not logical. Even certain vegetables can animate and kill a man. It is a place where Da Vinci’s doodles have become science. A wizard’s curses have leather-like wings and torment the magician assistants. You will see that Luck is no lady.

But before you discover all of this, you must first meet Go Fer. He is a cynanthrope who digs for deadly mandrake roots and wants to become Kadmeion’s familiar. Tick tock. Time is running out for Go Fer. Forever Boy will explain why.

Forever Boy is an eBook, available now for downloading and immediate gratification from Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

Dig Dog, and Die

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A dog digging for mandrake roots, from Mandragora Tacinum Sanitatis (Wikipedia)

I wanted to talk today about a dog’s occupation you will find in Lita’s forthcoming (next month, in October) story, Forever Boy. I searched for a 15th or 16th century practice involving a hazardous, magic-related activity for dogs. Let me tell you what I found.

All in the (Nightshade) Family

The mandrake is a medicinal plant related to deadly nightshade, and causes a narcotic effect. Mandrake has a parsnip-like root 3 to 4 feet long. Large, dark-green leaves extend from the root crown like a tobacco plant. Mandrake leaves have a foul odor. The primrose-type flowers produce a fruit with a yellow-apple appearance.

Mandrake roots resemble a human torso. It purportedly has magical powers. Old texts depict the male root with a long beard, and the female with bushy hair.

Killer of a Job

The best mandrake plants grew under gallows trees, where the body fluids of hanged murders fell to the ground and quickened the root’s magical properties. The problem was that the roots shrieked when pulled out of the earth. These cries killed anyone within hearing distance. It was hard to find employees for this work. The position had high turnover.

Here is where a dog’s occupation came in.

Mandrake harvesters dug a trench to reach the roots, tied a dog to a root, ran out of earshot, and coaxed the dog to come to them (usually with a piece of meat). The tethered dog pulled the root out of the earth and died from the plant’s screams. The dog’s death placated the root and the men could then safely handle it.

No Dogs Were Harmed in the Writing of This Book

Fiction writing is all about answering “What if…?” So, what if a mandrake-digging dog did not die? Why didn’t it die? Why would Wizard Kadmeion and his assistant Bright be interested in this dog? And most important, what happened to the jerk of a mandrake harvester who let other dogs die?

We meet our Forever Boy while he is digging for mandrake roots. He doesn’t die. There’s a minor demon involved. Kadmeion and Bright are nearby. And of course, things go horribly wrong.

I’ll tell you all about it in October.