MOON CARROT MUSINGS AND MEMORIES - BUT NOT FORGETTING MOON-CALVES, MANDRAKES, AND A PARCEL THAT TALKS!

Hardback first edition of The Talking Parcel (© Gerald Durrell/HarperCollins – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Moon carrots may not seem the most obvious choice of subject for a ShukerNature blog article, but there is good reason for my doing so, inasmuch as there is what I believe to be a hitherto-unrevealed link between these exotic-sounding plants and a noteworthy devotee of cryptozoology who featured them in a delightful children's novel replete with mythological creatures of many kinds. But to begin at the beginning…

The existence of moon carrots was first brought to my attention when, as a child, my grandad Ernest Timmins (my mother's father) bought for me as a Christmas present in 1968 (my ninth Christmas) an absolutely wonderful book entitled The Natural History of Europe.

The Natural History of Europe – from countless readings of my much-loved copy of this book (containing a greatly-treasured handwritten message inside from Grandad, who passed away just a few years later), and which I still own today, its dustjacket was totally wrecked many years ago, but I was eventually able to buy a replacement for it, seen here (© Harry Garms/Wilhelm Eigener/Paul Hamlyn Publishing Group – reproduced on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My copy was the second impression (published in 1968) of the 1967 English-language version of a German book entitled Pflanzen und Tiere Europas ('European Plants and Animals') that had originally been published in 1962. Written by Harry Garms and brimming throughout with the most delightful full-colour illustrations by Wilhelm Eigener, this fascinating book documented a vast array of fauna and flora inhabiting Europe, many of which were entirely new to me at that tender age, so it was instrumental in teaching me an immense amount about this continent's wildlife. Its contents were divided up into several discrete habitat-themed sections: Woods and Forests; Heath, Moor and Tundra; Freshwater; Sea and Shore; Meadows and Pastureland; Field, Garden and Park; and Mountains.

One of the non-British plants documented and depicted on p. 182 in the Meadows and Pastureland section was the annual moon carrot Seseli annuum. Yet in spite of its imaginative English name, it turned out merely to be a species of herb, albeit one that is indeed taxonomically akin to the true carrot Daucus carota sativus by being a member of the same plant family, Apiaceae (the umbellifers), and similarly producing a conical taproot. (Moreover, a closely related species, Seseli sibirica [= sibiricum], known simply as the moon carrot but native to Britain this time, was included on p. 222 in the Field, Garden and Park section.)

Moon carrot flowers – more than a hundred Seseli species are known, and many are referred to colloquially as moon carrots (© Andrey Zharkikh/Wikipedia – CC BY 2.0 licence)

Nevertheless, I was not the only person who was captivated by the moon carrot's memorable moniker. So too was the wildlife celebrity who had penned a foreword to this book – none other than Jersey Zoo founder, bestselling author, and longstanding cryptozoological enthusiast Gerald Durrell. Indeed, within his witty foreword can be found the following wonderful, inimitably Durrellesque lines, celebrating the fact that not only is this book an indispensable addition to the luggage of any keen naturalist visiting Europe but also:

…it is worth possessing for the sheer poetry that it contains. Who would mind an insect bite or two providing you were sure that they had been inflicted by the Spangle-winged Mosquito? Who, when swimming in the sea, would not be charmed to meet a fish called a Dentex (which sounds faintly like a new brand of toothpaste), or the Painted Comber (which must surely have some connection with mermaids)? But it is among the plants that the botanists have really let themselves run wild. Who would not stop, even on an autobahn, to get more closely acquainted with a Nodding Bur-marigold or Curtis's Mouse-ear or the Ramping Fumitory or even the Hawkweed Treacle-mustard? Who would not love to watch some worthy farmer gathering his crop of Annual Moon Carrot?

A portion of p. 182 from The Natural History of Europe that contains its description and depiction of the annual moon carrot – click to enlarge for reading purposes (© Harry Garms/Wilhelm Eigener/Paul Hamlyn Publishing Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It has been over 50 years since I first read those delightfully evocative words, but typing them here now it seems like only yesterday, as they made such a deep impression in my memory – and not only in mine. Fast-forward a decade, and by the end of the 1970s I had joyfully read every non-fiction book written up until then by Gerald Durrell himself, chronicling his numerous animal-collecting expeditions to all manner of far-flung tropical lands, his founding of Jersey Zoo, and of course his enchanting childhood as a passionate boy-naturalist growing up with his family (and other animals) on the idyllic Greek island of Corfu.

What I hadn't realized, however, was that he had also written some children's fantasy novels – until, when browsing through a bookshop one day during the early 1980s, I happened upon a paperback edition of one of them, entitled The Talking Parcel. The copy that I was looking at and duly purchased had been published in 1983 by Lions, of Fontana, and was the fifth impression of the Lions 1976 paperback edition. The original hardback edition, whose colourful dustjacket depicted a very imposing cockatrice in fiery finery (see this present ShukerNature blog article's opening picture), had been published two years earlier by Collins, in 1974 (and is now extremely collectable!).

My Lions paperback edition of Gerald Durrell's novel The Talking Parcel (© Gerald Durrell/Lions, of Fontana – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Back home, I started reading my latest literary acquisition straight away, whose story concerns three children (Penelope, Simon, and Peter) who find a talking parcel on the beach, which when opened reveals inside a somewhat bossy parrot (named Parrot – or, as he prefers to be called, The Parrot), who takes them to the fantasy land of Mythologia in order to rescue its kindly old magician, H.H., from the clutches of the dreadful cockatrices. Needless to say, I was delighted to discover that its story features all manner of other mythological and even cryptozoological creatures too, including werewolves, mermaids, griffons, phoenixes, shrieking mandrake plants, Tabitha the last dragon, a sea serpent named Oswald, and even some delightful Durrell-created beasties known as moon-calves. These latter animals are giant dark-green snails with golden and green shells but the heads of mooing bull calves, whose shells bear Hot and Cold taps for releasing milk as well as a third one specifically for cream. But my greatest surprise and pleasure came from finding that The Talking Parcel contains numerous references to none other than moon carrots! However, these are no ordinary ones – for as explained on p. 88 of my paperback copy, they had been created by the afore-mentioned magician H.H., are striped red and white, and, when hung up to dry after having being gathered, reveal written inscriptions upon their outer surface that are instructions for preparing whatever delicious full-course meal they describe, using nothing more than the special powder contained inside them.

Bearing in mind that his novel The Talking Parcel was not published until 1974, whereas he had written his moon carrot-mentioning foreword for The Natural History of Europe some time prior to its publication in 1967, I think it very likely that the moon carrot's presence in the latter book had served as direct inspiration for Gerald Durrell (whose foreword for it revealed that he had clearly been entertained by this plant's name) to incorporate it within his subsequent novel, albeit in a now much-magicalised form. And if so, how happy I am that it did, elevating what had hitherto been an obscure, little-known plant outside botanical circles into a magical delight that has since charmed, and continues to charm, generations of children – as well as a fair few parents – and not only via his original novel.

A publicity image for The Talking Parcel animated feature (© Brian Cosgrove/Mark Hall/Cosgrove Hall Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

In 1978, an extremely prolific UK-based animation studio named Cosgrove Hall Films (after its founder animators Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, and famed for such still-popular, fondly-remembered children's TV shows as Danger Mouse, SuperTed, Chorlton and the Wheelies, The Wind on the Willows, and Count Duckula), released a 40-minute animated version of The Talking Parcel, adapted from Durrell's novel by Rosemary Anne Sisson and directed by Brian Cosgrove himself. Its beloved characters are voiced by some of Britain's most popular actors and actresses at that time, including Freddie Jones as Parrot, Windsor Davies as the bombastic Chief Cockatrice, Roy Kinnear as a shifty but ultimately loyal toad named Ethelred, Mollie Sugden as Hortense the French flying train, and Sir Michael Hordern as Oswald the sea serpent. Of the original three children in the novel, only Penelope appears in this cartoon version, but otherwise it adheres fairly closely to the novel's basic storyline. Moreover, in faithful homage to the novel's introductory chapter, it opens with a scene featuring Parrot inside the parcel singing two verses of a very catchy song entitled 'Moon Carrot Pie' (the novel contains additional verses).

The Talking Parcel animated movie has been screened (and watched by me) a number of times on the UK TV channel ITV down through the years, and it has also been officially released on both VHS videocassette and DVD (although I have yet to find a reasonably-priced one in either format to add to my collection of animated productions). If you'd like to view it right now, however, you can currently do so here, free of charge, on YouTube. And so, altogether now:

Moon carrot Pie, Moon carrot Pie,

It'll liven you up, bring a gleam to your eye.

Oh, a dragon, a unicorn, sea serpent high,

They all love their slices of

Moon carrot Pie.

My grandad Ernest Timmins with me, mid-1960s (© Dr Karl Shuker)

DREAMCHILD AND VAMPIRES AND HOBBITS, OH MY! [an Eclectarium of Doctor Shuker crosspost]

'Kong: Skull Island' publicity poster and film still (© Jordan Vogt-Roberts/Legendary Pictures/Tencent Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures)

I've viewed quite a number of fantasy-themed movies lately, some new, some vintage, some exceedingly obscure, but most of them offering various degrees of cryptozoological/zoomythological content and relevance. So be sure to click the link below to read my mini-reviews of these films, first published on my Facebook wall but now preserved together in my Eclectarium:

The Eclectarium of Doctor Shuker: DREAMCHILD AND VAMPIRES AND HOBBITS, OH MY!

An adult female graphorn with her calf - from 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' (© David Yates/Heyday Films/Warner Bros. Pictures)

GROW YOUR OWN HOMUNCULUS

Creating a homunculus via alchemy

Even today, the alchemists of medieval times remain famous for their supposed (but unconfirmed) ability to transmute base metals into gold, using the fabled philosopher's stone. Less well-remembered, yet even more controversial, is their alleged artificial creation of manikins - i.e. tiny living humanoids known as homunculi.

Some references to homunculi in alchemical texts featured them as symbolic rather than literal. For instance, the fabled Philosopher's Stone is sometimes considered to be a homunculus, with its creation no less than the representation of the Great Work (Magnum Opus) process, merely described in a different way.

A symbolic homunculus, depicted in The Pretiosissimum Donum Dei ('The Most Precious Gift of God'), an important 15th-Century alchemical work by Georgius Aurach de Argentina

In September 1994, however, Paul Thompson published an engrossing review of this largely-forgotten arcane subject in America's Fate Magazine that contained some remarkable revelations regarding the alleged creation of living homunculi, and which in turn inspired my own ongoing fascination with this subject.

Alchemists claimed that the culture medium required for the growth of homunculi contained several biological fluids such as sputum or egg-white, and sometimes inorganic fluids like dew, but the two substances most commonly cited as essential were human blood and semen - both of which are widely believed in primitive or non-scientific societies to harbour the vital essence of life. Also required was horse manure, whose heat-releasing properties were utilised to incubate the medium.

Bearing in mind that all of the above ingredients are readily obtainable, why was the production of homunculi a skill restricted to alchemists? The answer is that the recipes always seemed to contain one vital ingredient that was exceptionally complex and difficult to prepare.

Paracelsus, painted by Quentin Massys

For example, in the homunculus recipe contained within the treatise De Natura Rerum, written by 16th-Century Swiss scholar and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus (aka Philippus von Hohenheim), 'the arcanum of human blood' was included - essential but esoteric, its constituents known only to the alchemical fraternity. Here, just in case any reader wishes to attempt it himself, is Paracelsus's description of how to create a homunculus:

"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite [glass vessel] with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus [horse manure] for 40 days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40 weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence."

Equally obscure is 'animal tincture', listed in another medieval recipe.

The vaguely human-looking root of the mandragora or mandrake plant Mandragora officinarum inspired the false belief during medieval times that it could be utilised in the production of homunculi. During his body's last convulsive spasms before death, a hanged man will sometimes ejaculate semen, and it was said that where this fell to the ground, a mandrake would grow. If its anthropomorphic root was then pulled out before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed, and nurtured with milk, honey, and sometimes human blood too, the root would subsequently develop into a homunculus, which would guard and protect its owner.

Mandrake with unrealistically humanoid root, depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 15th-Century manuscript

An even more exotic recipe for growing your own homunculus was cited during the 1700s by no less a figure of learning than Dr David Christianus from Germany's Giessen University. According to his claim, an egg should be taken from a black hen, and a tiny hole should be poked through its shell. A bean-sized portion of the albumen then needed to be removed and replaced by human semen, after which the egg's opening should be sealed with the hymen from a virgin maiden. Once this was accomplished, the egg must be buried in dung during the first day of the March lunar cycle. After 30 days, a homunculus should emerge from the egg, and as long as its owner provided it with a regular diet of earthworms and lavender seeds it would protect him and assist him in all of his endeavours.

Notwithstanding the inherent difficulties in obtaining the necessary ingredients and in performing the intricate series of processes required, records detailing the successful culturing of homunculi do exist. An extraordinary specimen grown from distilled human blood and able to emit beams of red light was reputedly cultured and exhibited at the court of France's King Louis XIV by royal physician-alchemist Dr Pierre Borel.

A century earlier, the celebrated Elizabethan magus John Dee was rumoured to have created homunculi to assist him in his spying activities on behalf of England's Queen Elizabeth I, with claims that these manikins lurked unseen amid shadows and gloom, listening for incriminating information concerning suspected enemies of the Crown that they would then impart to their creator. Of course, such allegations conveniently ignore a basic tenet of homunculus lore, namely that these man-made entities rarely survive for very long if taken out of the large glass jars or other strong vitreous vessels in which they have been reared. Paying homage to the above-noted medieval claims, Peter Ackroyd's famous novel The House of Doctor Dee (1993) includes a section in which Dee successfully creates a homunculus.

Portrait of John Dee by an unknown 16th-Century artist (public domain)

As fully documented in Dr Emil Besetzny's Masonic handbook Die Sphinx (1873), and also recorded by German physician and occultist Dr Franz Hartmann in his own book The Life of Paracelsus (1887), the most outstanding case, however, must surely be the creation of ten living homunculi in a mere five weeks. This was reputedly accomplished in 1775 by two alchemists - the Austrian nobleman Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein, and the Italian mystic and Rosicrucian cleric Abbé Geloni.

Like all homunculi, they were grown in sealed jars (as noted earlier, homunculi die if exposed for any considerable period to the air), which were filled with water and eventually buried under heaps of horse manure. These were treated (as usual) with some special, but unspecified, solution, which doubled the size of eight of the homunculi, producing a series of 1-ft-tall specimens.

No two homunculi looked the same, and to each was fixed an identity. Eight were physical manikins, known respectively as the king, queen, knight, monk, nun, seraph, miner, and architect, and clothes pertinent to their identities were manufactured for them. Each of these eight homunculi was fed with special rose-pink tablets every 3-4 days, and their water was changed once a week. On one occasion, the 'king' homunculus escaped from his jar, and was earnestly trying to remove the seal on the jar housing the 'queen' when he was spotted by Count Kufstein's butler, Kammerer. Chased by Kufstein and Kammerer, the 'king' soon fainted from exposure to the air, and was put back inside his own receptacle.

The remaining two homunculi were non-corporeal, and only appeared when Geloni tapped their jars and chanted certain magical words. A face would then materialise in each of them; moreover, in one the liquid would turn blue, in the other it would turn red. The red 'spirit' homunculus bore a horrible expression upon its face, was fed with a thimbleful of animal blood once a week, and its water was changed every 2-3 days, being replaced each time with fresh rainwater; whereas the blue 'spirit' homunculus had a beautiful angelic face, but was never fed, and its water was never changed.

All ten homunculi would answer questions concerning future events, invariably predicting correctly the outcomes, and they were observed by many people. These included some very notable personages, like Count Franz Josef von Thun and Count Max Lamberg. Surely, however, such bizarre man-made entities could not really have existed - or could they?

As I noted when I first documented homunculi, back in 1996 within my book The Unexplained, I cannot help but wonder whether these particular examples (or at least the eight corporeal ones) were nothing more than large anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) brought back by travellers from the tropics. Certainly, the collecting and exhibiting as curios all manner of dead and living specimens of exotic, unfamiliar creatures not native to Europe was a very widespread activity in the West as far back the Middle Ages. One likely candidate is the sub-Saharan African clawed toad (aka frog) Xenopus laevis, a common species that is very hardy, can live for up to 25 years, is vaguely humanoid in shape, can be up to 1 ft or so in length if measured from snout-tip to hind claw-tip (with its very long hind legs fully extended backwards), and has big protruding eyes. Moreover, it lives almost permanently in water - thus explaining why the 'king' fainted soon after escaping from its jar?

An extremely popular laboratory species as well as a pet, thanks to numerous escapes and deliberate releases X. laevis is nowadays represented by many well-established naturalised populations existing far beyond its native African distribution range, in countries such as France, Italy, Portugal, the U.K. (in southern Wales, but formerly on the Isle of Wight too, the U.S.A., Mexico, Chile, and Indonesia (on Java). Consequently, the presence of specimens thriving in Europe during the 1700s after having been brought here from Africa as novelties is by no means an implausible concept. Xenopus as a homunculus? It would not be the first time that a potent elixir of superstitious fear, religious fervour, and zoological ignorance distilled and decanted during the pre-scientific age had transmogrified a real but little-known, odd-looking creature into something ostensibly arcane and anomalous.

Were homunculi truly created from blood, or were they merely specimens of large anuran amphibians such as the African clawed toad (like this one)? (Michael Linnenbach/Wikipedia)

Very pertinent to this intriguing possibility is a claim made against Pope Formosus (his papacy spanning 891-896 AD) by the Cadaver Synod. This was the macabre but aptly-named posthumous ecclesiastical trial of the latter pontiff's exhumed, rotting corpse that was held in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome during January 897 AD and conducted by Pope Stephen VI. As documented by Dr Bob Curran in his fascinating book Man-Made Monsters: A Field Guide to Golems, Patchwork Soldiers, Homunculi, and Other Created Creatures (2011):

"[Pope Formosus] was accused of practicing witchcraft, and creating strange potions, and creating small beings in jars or receptacles. Legend says that one of these resembled a frog with huge eyes, which manifested a "diabolical intelligence" and which "brought terror to all who saw it," altough what became of this creature (and another than Formosus supposedly created) is unknown...It is possible that his alleged alchemical creations (if they actually existed) were destroyed upon his death."

Dr Bob Curran's fascinating book Man-Made Monsters ((c) Dr Bob Curran/New Page Books)

As for the ten homunculi of Kufstein and Geloni: no-one knows what happened to nine of these ostensibly man-made manikins either, after their two supposed creators had ultimately gone their separate ways. However, an event occurred that may actually have left behind some tangible evidence of the tenth. Once, the jar containing the 'monk' homunculus was accidentally dropped, smashing as it hit the floor and killing its humanoid inhabitant. His body was afterwards buried in the grounds of Kufstein's Tyrolean residence - but where is this today? If only we knew its locality, the soil around it could be sifted, as suggested by Paul Thompson - and who knows what remains might be found?

One thing is certain. If a 12-in-long skeleton is ever found under these circumstances, Thompson would be very interested to learn more about it - and so would I.


This article is extracted and greatly expanded from the short homunculus section of my book The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries (Carlton: London, 1996).