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God's Bits of Wood is a 1960 novel by the Senegalese
author Ousmane Sembène that concerns a railroad
strike in colonial Senegal of the 1940s. It was written in French under
the title Les bouts de bois de Dieu. The book deals with
several ways that the Senegalese and Malians
responded to colonialism. There are elements that tend toward
accommodation, collaboration, or even idealization of the French
colonials. At the same time the story details the strikers who work
against the mistreatment the Senegalese people.^[1]
The novel was translated in to English in 1962 and published by William Heinemann.

The Mandrake's Curse

A short telling of the mandragora myth: According to the legend, the Mandragora is created when the semen of a hanged man hits the dirt below, from whence forth a mandrake grows.

"Some believed that the most efficacious roots grew under a gallows or where suicides had been buried at crossroads. As to why the most potent mandrakes were supposed to grow under gallows, they were believed to be produced from the semen involuntarily ejaculated by a hanged man."

When the root is dug up it screams and kills all who hear it, but a dog's barking can drown out this scream and, while killing the dog, it saves all else who hear it. Some myths involve even tying the mandrake to the dog so that the dog may safely pull the root from the ground without harm to humans. Literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety:

"The mandrake's curse. After being shown a tasty morsel, a hungry dog is tied to the root of the mandrake. From a safe distance, the hunter throws the food in front of the dog, which lunges forward, uprooting the herb. The dog dies at sunrise and is buried with secret rites."

And also directions for the proper care of a new and growing mandrake human:

"As soon as it was out of the ground it needed to be cut free from the body of the dog, then washed clean in red wine; after which it was wrapped in a garment of either white or red silk, and placed in a casket. Every Friday at the evening hour it had to be rewashed in red wine, and provided with a new garment at each new moon."

And of course, the most excellent benefits that come along with owning a Mandrake who works in many was as a Muse works. Since these are musical videos for a musical artist, there are a lot of reference to musical divinity and such.

"Its happy possessor would henceforth have no enemies, and never again be poor, because a gold coin laid beside the mandrake overnight was sure to become doubled by morning; however, it was not wise to repeat this process too often, for possibly the ‘Little Gallows Man' would suffer fatigue, and might even die."

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