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That human being immortal now became the king of mankind and betrayed his promise hiring a hunter to kill the male and the child but kept the female captive to keep himself alive. The hunter later realized the king's evil after befriending the captive Saxon and killed the king in anger. This unfortunately killed his friend the last Saxon as well. However in some stories the hunter and the Saxon had already given birth to a hybrid child, the first Mandrake, before the mother died and the hunter brought the child up as their own.\n\nAppearing to be human from a distance she became rather good at conceiling her tail and taloned feet but the rise of Judaeism meant that she was mistaken for Hellspawn and targetted by priests. Her father the hunter fought off many would be killers but one night he was overpowered and his Mandrake child was stolen from him. However the daughter turned out to be a master of persuasion and after getting her captors drunk and giving her clothes to the unsavory old men managed to slip away unnoticed. She later heard that he father was dead however the rumors weren't true but she still believed them and went wandering the land for many years in search of a place to call home. Finding a cave by the water much further south where it was warmer she lived off fish she caught with an improvised spear and became an excellent swimmer, which was somewhat helped by her more reptilian lower half.\n\nOne day whilst singing a sad song she had created herself about how she was mistreated by man, a fiddler captivated by her soft singing voice went in search of the source of the beautiful music and almost drowned in the sea trying to get a closer look of her, though she rescued him. Waking to see her beauty he instantly fell in love and spent some time with her playing music to her singing before inviting her to his house. She accepted and she was dressed in the best finery and fed the best food. She was taught how to hide her tail and feet under a ball gown and married the man but was unable to conceave children. Annoyed that his wife wouldn't give him a child the man sought comfort in the arms of another woman, the girl's deadly rival, the sea witch. Heartbroken she flung herself from the clifftops and died.\n\nHowever, a lady swimming in the waters naked saw the woman lying dead on the rocks and presuming that she might not be dead and rushed to her aid to find it was too late and the girl had died instantly from the fall. The blood in the water around her started to shift and the girl felt a sharp pain as it took solid form and stabbed her in the abdomen. After the fiddler came rushing down to see if his wife was okay the woman quickly dived under the water and swam away so as not to be seen naked. She quickly got dressed and headed home believing that the sharp pain was from being bitten by a type of eel which she knew lived around the rocks already. Developing an unsightly, large and hideous tumor where she had felt the pain before she went to a barber to have the lump removed but the barber told her that it was like nothing he had seen before and dare not touch it in case he accidentally killed the girl. One day when taking a shortcut through a patch of carrots the girl took a quick pitstop and urinated in the field before moving on. This turned out to be a very significant moment in this mythology.\n\nThe farmers who owned the field kept hearing beautiful singing coming from an unknown source. It drove them mad as they couldn't find where the singing was coming from as despite it sounding like one voice it appeared to be coming from all around. After getting lower to the ground they noticed the singing was coming from under the earth and trying to get to the sound they plucked the carrots out. Suddenly the singing turned to horrifying screams and the farmers were so terrified that the elder male of the family died on the spot from a heart attack. Believing their crops to be cursed they called for a priest but when he arrived the carrots sprung up from the ground and tied the priest down. Terrified, the farmers ran to find a guardsman to slay the living carrots but when he arrived the field was silent and there was no signs that anything had happened. Nothing else happened for weeks and so the farmers put it down to a prank by a cruel duende that they might have angered once and forgotten about.\n\nThe carrots were later sold at the market and everything seemed fine until months later when the women of the town had given birth to their newborn children and noticed that the females had talons for feet and a snake-like tail, the males by comparison were entirely human but had hideous birth defects and large port wine stain birth marks all over their bodies. The people thought that it was just the one family that was cursed until another and another and another showed up until the whole town was having children exactly the same. The priests said that it was judgement by God and that the mothers needed to be tried as witches but their husbands chased the priests out of town for the suggestion and comforted their wives.\n\nThe townspeople didn't go on to have any more deformed children after a month or two and everything seemed rather normal except for the odd looking children. However the people soon came to realize that these children were much more hardy than the normal children and the diseases that normally killed children at an early age had no effect on these kids. The males were also great musicians even from an early age and the females had beautiful singing voices. However news spread of the freakish children and soon neighboring villages were on the warpath out to kill the Hellspawn and anyone who protected them. Somehow able to predict the future the children lead their families to the water where they kissed them on the mouths and told them to follow them into the sea. By this point in time the children had shown many magical powers of all kinds and so their families went along with it even though they were hesitant. On submerging themselves in the water the people soon discovered they cold breath despite not opening their mouths and the children lead the villagers away deep into the ocean where they found an untouched island surrounded by jagged rock and mist and settled there.\n\nSailors of the seas then told stories about beautiful music they could hear as they sailed the oceans but couldn't find where. When they entered a cloud of mist it seemed to be all around and even under the boat itself in the water. On hearing these silly rumors a famous pirate set sail for this island and was stranded at sea for several weeks when the wind died. His ship drifted around the oceans until at sunrise he saw something twinkling on the horizon. His shipmates put it down to light reflecting off the water but the captain was convinced it was gold. As they sailed closer they heard the beautiful music they had been told about and being good sailor managed to land the ship on a beach. There they were met by strange people who had snake tails and bird feet and they were treated to a lavish meal of strange jungle foods. Being from Asia the pirate asked why the people didn't eat the snakes of the island and they told the pirates that they were protected. Spending the next few months on the island the pirates enjoyed the fact that the island had everything to offer however one pirate that had fallen in love with a girl from the island had become increasingly upset that she wasn't becoming pregnant.\n\nShe told him that she could only love a snake and thinking that she meant that she hadn't fallen in love with him went out into the jungle to find a snake and kill it. On finding a snake he first spoke aloud telling how he was going to kill the snake to humor himself however the snake spoke and begged him not to. Completely taken aback by this the man ran and told his fellow pirates the story though they didn't believe him. Trying to prove a point the captain lead a party out into the jungle to find a snake and on setting a trap soon discovered the story to be true. Fearing that the snake was Hellspawn they let it go again and begged for forgiveness. Afterwards they ran back to their ship and left the island as fast as they could believing they had a lucky escape from the island of devil creatures.\n\nWhen they turned up to shore many months after setting sail, even too many for a long voyage, the people who had presumed them dead were flabberghasted by their fantastic story and soon many set sail looking for the island. Many ships didn't return, many ships had to turn back when they found themselves getting too close to the jagged rocks in the mist and many couldn't find the island at all. One entreped adventurer, a ship's doctor, hired a ship and set sail for the island but despite hearing singing all around couldn't see the island. The singing seemed to be mostly coming from above and they drew their attention to a large lowlying cloud that was above the ship that they'd previously ignored. Being a very clever man but also seeing the stupidity in all this the doctor called up to the island and said \"ahoy up there, seen any islands around here?\" and almost as he said it the boat lifted out of the water and was carried up into the clouds and landed on a beach.\n\nThere the shipmates were met by the very people the pirates had described and true to the tale the island had everything they could ever want. Being a doctor, a man of science, he came to the conclusion that the creatures were just some form of natural mutation, the product of inbreeding. However the story about a talking snake burned in his mind and while the other shipmates were distracted he gathered a party and went searching in the jungle for this mythical talking snake. However the jungle was dangerous and soon the doctor lost his party to poisonous plants and preditorial animals and became lost in a fog. Panicked especially as he could hear growls around him getting closer he began to run though he couldn't see where he was going until a voice yelled out to him \"stop!\" and he froze on the spot before noticing he had almost run right off a cliff edge in his haste.\n\nHe heard the animals that had been following him fighting and saw the hint of a large red creature swaying around in the mist. The growls grew quieter and the large red thing got closer and realizing he had nowhere to run he stood there in fear as a gigantic red snake emerged from the mist. He screamed the loudest scream and his shipmates heard it and gathered a party including the island's inhabitants to go and look for the missing doctor. However the red snake told him not to be afraid and the doctors fear turned to joy and amazement that he had found the legendary talking snake. He climbed onto its back and it carried him deep into the forest where it told him all about the people of the island where they came from. On asking how the snake knew all of this he was told that the snake had been there as a human boy. Realizing that that meant the snake was hundreds of years old he said in amazement \"don't tell me you've discovered the secret to eternal life!\" to which the snake answered \"okay then i wont\" confirming that they had.\n\nAfter meeting up with the hunting party, the doctor explained all and soon the shipmates were really excited to get the chance to live forever. The islanders showed them the elixer of life they had brewed and the sailors all took a drink without question. Then the doctor amazed by this finding told his shipmates they had to go home and tell people about what they found so after a while of enjoying themselves they set sail, landed in port and told everyone the news. Completely dumbstruck by this new information some rowdy pirates called it howswash and taunted the doctor saying \"if you believe this elixer makes you immortal then test it at the end of my blade\" but the doctor was no fool and had already tried to cut himself to see if the elixer worked and said \"alright then\" to the pirate. The pirate not expecting such a frank response tried to persuade the doctor out of it but the doctor grabbed the sword and attempted to stab himself multiple times before the tip of the sword broke off and everyone could see that despite his clothes becoming torn there was not even a scratch on him.\n\nThe pirates looked at each other and licked their lips. \"We could have all the money we want and nobody could stop us\" they conversed to each other. Quickly they clambered over the tables and ran out the door to their ship and sailed off to find the island. It took them years to find it but they eventually learned that the island moved along a set path after interrogating other sailors and putting all the information together. Predicting where it would be next they sailed in that direction until the sky grew dark and thick with clouds. There they saw one particular cloud was much lower than the rest and sailed for it in the middle of the intense storm. Reaching the bottom of the cloud they could hear singing and called up \"ahoy up there my beautiful people. i've come to taste your fabulous elixer\" and sure enough their ship was carried up into the clouds and landed on a beach.\n\nHaving no interest in making friends the pirates stormed the castle at the center of the island and held the people at swordpoint but on entering the store room where the elixer was kept before they found it full of food, wine and gold but no elixer. They decided to turn their attention to the islanders asking where they could find the elixer to which the people responded that there was a spring on the other side of the island where the water was collected to make the elixer. If the pirates were to drink from it they would become immortal. The pirates grabbed the most important member of the tribe they could guess by appearance and got them to lead the way. \nHowever as the pirates got deeper into the forest the mist rode in and they found themselves entirely reliant on the islander for direction. The pirate captain now woriied about what a mess he'd got into started pressuring the islander to hurry up but another pirate intervened and told him to stop pestering the poor girl as it wasn't gentlemanly. The captain noticing his rank slipping grabbed his subordinate comrad but unfortunately this young pirate had been planning a mutiny as the rest of the pirate crew had had enough of the captain's often ill-thought-out snap decisions and the pirates wrestled the captain to the ground and tied him up with the ropes holding the islander letting her go in the process and she slipped away into the fog.\n\nScared and alone the pirates turned their new leader who instructed the pirates to sing and brought out a fiddle to play. Believing the pirate was mad but also believing anything was worth a try at this moment they did as he said and soon saw the islander returned to them. They went to grab her but the new captain stopped them and told the pirates that if they wanted to get off the island alive they would need her help. Being extra nice to the islander the pirates soon won their trust and the islander took them to a large cave where a spring welled from the wall and traveled in a stream across the floor before disappearing down a hole into a large pool. The new captain instructed his sailors to \"drink up\" and sat patiently on a rock not drinking the spring water and after quencing their thirst the pirates drew swords on each other to test their immortality. However they ran each other through with the swords. They didn't die but unlike the doctor who couldn't be cut they were in agony.\n\nAfter pulling the swords out of their bodies they confronted the new captain as he hadn't touched a drop of the water. He told them that the elixer was made from this water and wasn't the same as the elixer itself. He proudly told the crew that had become the undead and had achieved the immortality they wanted so badly. Realizing they'd been tricked they untied their former captain and left the cave but as soon as they had done so they deliberately caused a landslide that blocked the cave entrance trapping the islander and the mutinous captain inside which the arrogant pirate hadn't anticipated. Now very scared and nowhere near as cocky as before the pirate began to panic in the dark but the islander kissed him on the lips and guided him down into the pool of spring water and showed him a secret passage underwater that took them out to another point on the island.\n\nThe pirates now following their old captain soon came to realize that despite him saying he knew where he was going they were hopelessly lost in the mist. One pirate got his leg trapped in a venus flytrap (yes, i didn't make that up), another got stuck in quicksand and one fell into a crevas with water inside and couldn't climb out and each time the pirate captain kept moving on and leaving the men behind. The remaining pirates eventually got sick of this arrogant behavior and stabbed the man with a poisonous barb from a plant they had encountered earlier. The captain twitching and foaming at the mouth was presumed dead and the remaining pirates found their way back to their ship and sailed away totally seething with anger at how their journey had been a failure.\n\nThe pirate that was saved by the islander traveled back to the castle at the center of the island and having no boat stayed there and eventually drank the elixer of life which the islanders prepared. He revealed to the islanders that he was the long descendant of the man who had married one of their kind years ago who had trown herself onto the rocks and from her blood had given birth to their race. Finally the islanders knew the truth of how they had become what they are and the man was praised as their leader.\n\nSailors would encounter the island from time to time in search of the strange people but it appeared that the news of the elixer had eluded the attention of the general public. However the immortal pirates would go on to have many adventures before one by one they died from things that kill undead. That was however except for the captain who grew tired of the chase for wealth and settled down in the carribean and married a voodoo priestess before cheating on her and then sailing the seas to escape a curse that followed him everywhere and caused bad luck wherever he went.\n\nIn some stories the Mandrakes can fly and/or have wings though that's most likely down to the fact that their island floats and so it only makes sense to have it. The Mandrake are also known as Incubus and Succubus in religious references and are fallen angels known for their rampant sex habits though there's no mention of this in any of the original stories and it's most likely spawned from the fact they kiss people to enable them to breathe underwater. They are also the inspiration for mermaids and sirens due to the fact their singing lures men to the rocks in the fog and because of their great swimming ability. Water Babies are also supposed to be inspired from the children that lead their parents to the water and in some depictions they are turtles as their island is sometimes mentioned as being the shape of a turtle shell which later became the idea that it was built on the back of a flying turtle. Being turtles also led to the idea of the Kappa who are turtle-like creatures that lure children into the water. It's worth noting that although there is a lot of confusion between the tale of the Mandrake and the tale of Atlantis they are in fact two separate folklore tales. Being flying spirits of the sea they are sometimes depicted as seagulls, ducks, geese or swans, being half human and half a water fowl or being able to transform into these creatures from entirely human form and this has also lead to the creation of the story of Swan Lake. Mandrake carrots were also said to be an alchemical ingredient that are so rare that a wizard would give their index fingers on the rumors that one exists. There are elements of the story that are used in Gulliver's Travels and Treasure Island and the fabled Well of Life or Fountain of Youth appears in many other legends since. It's worth mentioning that despite the story containing numerous things that we associate with a later date this story exists way before Georgian times and the pirates mentioned are likely to be Vikings rather than Boogies.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The Mandrakes:
When only a handful of Sira worshiping Saxons were left, they were killed along with the thieving vagrant Saxons, except for a male dragon, his son and his mate who shared her heart with a human who promised to protect the Saxons. That human being immortal now became the king of mankind and betrayed his promise hiring a hunter to kill the male and the child but kept the female captive to keep himself alive. The hunter later realized the king's evil after befriending the captive Saxon and killed the king in anger. This unfortunately killed his friend the last Saxon as well. However in some stories the hunter and the Saxon had already given birth to a hybrid child, the first Mandrake, before the mother died and the hunter brought the child up as their own.

Appearing to be human from a distance she became rather good at conceiling her tail and taloned feet but the rise of Judaeism meant that she was mistaken for Hellspawn and targetted by priests. Her father the hunter fought off many would be killers but one night he was overpowered and his Mandrake child was stolen from him. However the daughter turned out to be a master of persuasion and after getting her captors drunk and giving her clothes to the unsavory old men managed to slip away unnoticed. She later heard that he father was dead however the rumors weren't true but she still believed them and went wandering the land for many years in search of a place to call home. Finding a cave by the water much further south where it was warmer she lived off fish she caught with an improvised spear and became an excellent swimmer, which was somewhat helped by her more reptilian lower half.

One day whilst singing a sad song she had created herself about how she was mistreated by man, a fiddler captivated by her soft singing voice went in search of the source of the beautiful music and almost drowned in the sea trying to get a closer look of her, though she rescued him. Waking to see her beauty he instantly fell in love and spent some time with her playing music to her singing before inviting her to his house. She accepted and she was dressed in the best finery and fed the best food. She was taught how to hide her tail and feet under a ball gown and married the man but was unable to conceave children. Annoyed that his wife wouldn't give him a child the man sought comfort in the arms of another woman, the girl's deadly rival, the sea witch. Heartbroken she flung herself from the clifftops and died.

However, a lady swimming in the waters naked saw the woman lying dead on the rocks and presuming that she might not be dead and rushed to her aid to find it was too late and the girl had died instantly from the fall. The blood in the water around her started to shift and the girl felt a sharp pain as it took solid form and stabbed her in the abdomen. After the fiddler came rushing down to see if his wife was okay the woman quickly dived under the water and swam away so as not to be seen naked. She quickly got dressed and headed home believing that the sharp pain was from being bitten by a type of eel which she knew lived around the rocks already. Developing an unsightly, large and hideous tumor where she had felt the pain before she went to a barber to have the lump removed but the barber told her that it was like nothing he had seen before and dare not touch it in case he accidentally killed the girl. One day when taking a shortcut through a patch of carrots the girl took a quick pitstop and urinated in the field before moving on. This turned out to be a very significant moment in this mythology.

The farmers who owned the field kept hearing beautiful singing coming from an unknown source. It drove them mad as they couldn't find where the singing was coming from as despite it sounding like one voice it appeared to be coming from all around. After getting lower to the ground they noticed the singing was coming from under the earth and trying to get to the sound they plucked the carrots out. Suddenly the singing turned to horrifying screams and the farmers were so terrified that the elder male of the family died on the spot from a heart attack. Believing their crops to be cursed they called for a priest but when he arrived the carrots sprung up from the ground and tied the priest down. Terrified, the farmers ran to find a guardsman to slay the living carrots but when he arrived the field was silent and there was no signs that anything had happened. Nothing else happened for weeks and so the farmers put it down to a prank by a cruel duende that they might have angered once and forgotten about.

The carrots were later sold at the market and everything seemed fine until months later when the women of the town had given birth to their newborn children and noticed that the females had talons for feet and a snake-like tail, the males by comparison were entirely human but had hideous birth defects and large port wine stain birth marks all over their bodies. The people  thought that it was just the one family that was cursed until another and another and another showed up until the whole town was having children exactly the same. The priests said that it was judgement by God and that the mothers needed to be tried as witches but their husbands chased the priests out of town for the suggestion and comforted their wives.

The townspeople didn't go on to have any more deformed children after a month or two and everything seemed rather normal except for the odd looking children. However the people soon came to realize that these children were much more hardy than the normal children and the diseases that normally killed children at an early age had no effect on these kids. The males were also great musicians even from an early age and the females had beautiful singing voices. However news spread of the freakish children and soon neighboring villages were on the warpath out to kill the Hellspawn and anyone who protected them. Somehow able to predict the future the children lead their families to the water where they kissed them on the mouths and told them to follow them into the sea. By this point in time the children had shown many magical powers of all kinds and so their families went along with it even though they were hesitant. On submerging themselves in the water the people soon discovered they cold breath despite not opening their mouths and the children lead the villagers away deep into the ocean where they found an untouched island surrounded by jagged rock and mist and settled there.

Sailors of the seas then told stories about beautiful music they could hear as they sailed the oceans but couldn't find where. When they entered a cloud of mist it seemed to be all around and even under the boat itself in the water. On hearing these silly rumors a famous pirate set sail for this island and was stranded at sea for several weeks when the wind died. His ship drifted around the oceans until at sunrise he saw something twinkling on the horizon. His shipmates put it down to light reflecting off the water but the captain was convinced it was gold. As they sailed closer they heard the beautiful music they had been told about and being good sailor managed to land the ship on a beach. There they were met by strange people who had snake tails and bird feet and they were treated to a lavish meal of strange jungle foods. Being from Asia the pirate asked why the people didn't eat the snakes of the island and they told the pirates that they were protected. Spending the next few months on the island the pirates enjoyed the fact that the island had everything to offer however one pirate that had fallen in love with a girl from the island had become increasingly upset that she wasn't becoming pregnant.

She told him that she could only love a snake and thinking that she meant that she hadn't fallen in love with him went out into the jungle to find a snake and kill it. On finding a snake he first spoke aloud telling how he was going to kill the snake to humor himself however the snake spoke and begged him not to. Completely taken aback by this the man ran and told his fellow pirates the story though they didn't believe him. Trying to prove a point the captain lead a party out into the jungle to find a snake and on setting a trap soon discovered the story to be true. Fearing that the snake was Hellspawn they let it go again and begged for forgiveness. Afterwards they ran back to their ship and left the island as fast as they could believing they had a lucky escape from the island of devil creatures.

When they turned up to shore many months after setting sail, even too many for a long voyage, the people who had presumed them dead were flabberghasted by their fantastic story and soon many set sail looking for the island. Many ships didn't return, many ships had to turn back when they found themselves getting too close to the jagged rocks in the mist and many couldn't find the island at all. One entreped adventurer, a ship's doctor, hired a ship and set sail for the island but despite hearing singing all around couldn't see the island. The singing seemed to be mostly coming from above and they drew their attention to a large lowlying cloud that was above the ship that they'd previously ignored. Being a very clever man but also seeing the stupidity in all this the doctor called up to the island and said "ahoy up there, seen any islands around here?" and almost as he said it the boat lifted out of the water and was carried up into the clouds and landed on a beach.

There the shipmates were met by the very people the pirates had described and true to the tale the island had everything they could ever want. Being a doctor, a man of science, he came to the conclusion that the creatures were just some form of natural mutation, the product of inbreeding. However the story about a talking snake burned in his mind and while the other shipmates were distracted he gathered a party and went searching in the jungle for this mythical talking snake. However the jungle was dangerous and soon the doctor lost his party to poisonous plants and preditorial animals and became lost in a fog. Panicked especially as he could hear growls around him getting closer he began to run though he couldn't see where he was going until a voice yelled out to him "stop!" and he froze on the spot before noticing he had almost run right off a cliff edge in his haste.

He heard the animals that had been following him fighting and saw the hint of a large red creature swaying around in the mist. The growls grew quieter and the large red thing got closer and realizing he had nowhere to run he stood there in fear as a gigantic red snake emerged from the mist. He screamed the loudest scream and his shipmates heard it and gathered a party including the island's inhabitants to go and look for the missing doctor. However the red snake told him not to be afraid and the doctors fear turned to joy and amazement that he had found the legendary talking snake. He climbed onto its back and it carried him deep into the forest where it told him all about the people of the island where they came from. On asking how the snake knew all of this he was told that the snake had been there as a human boy. Realizing that that meant the snake was hundreds of years old he said in amazement "don't tell me you've discovered the secret to eternal life!" to which the snake answered "okay then i wont" confirming that they had.

After meeting up with the hunting party, the doctor explained all and soon the shipmates were really excited to get the chance to live forever. The islanders showed them the elixer of life they had brewed and the sailors all took a drink without question. Then the doctor amazed by this finding told his shipmates they had to go home and tell people about what they found so after a while of enjoying themselves they set sail, landed in port and told everyone the news. Completely dumbstruck by this new information some rowdy pirates called it howswash and taunted the doctor saying "if you believe this elixer makes you immortal then test it at the end of my blade" but the doctor was no fool and had already tried to cut himself to see if the elixer worked and said "alright then" to the pirate. The pirate not expecting such a frank response tried to persuade the doctor out of it but the doctor grabbed the sword and attempted to stab himself multiple times before the tip of the sword broke off and everyone could see that despite his clothes becoming torn there was not even a scratch on him.

The pirates looked at each other and licked their lips. "We could have all the money we want and nobody could stop us" they conversed to each other. Quickly they clambered over the tables and ran out the door to their ship and sailed off to find the island. It took them years to find it but they eventually learned that the island moved along a set path after interrogating other sailors and putting all the information together. Predicting where it would be next they sailed in that direction until the sky grew dark and thick with clouds. There they saw one particular cloud was much lower than the rest and sailed for it in the middle of the intense storm. Reaching the bottom of the cloud they could hear singing and called up "ahoy up there my beautiful people. i've come to taste your fabulous elixer" and sure enough their ship was carried up into the clouds and landed on a beach.

Having no interest in making friends the pirates stormed the castle at the center of the island and held the people at swordpoint but on entering the store room where the elixer was kept before they found it full of food, wine and gold but no elixer. They decided to turn their attention to the islanders asking where they could find the elixer to which the people responded that there was a spring on the other side of the island where the water was collected to make the elixer. If the pirates were to drink from it they would become immortal. The pirates grabbed the most important member of the tribe they could guess by appearance and got them to lead the way.
However as the pirates got deeper into the forest the mist rode in and they found themselves entirely reliant on the islander for direction. The pirate captain now woriied about what a mess he'd got into started pressuring the islander to hurry up but another pirate intervened and told him to stop pestering the poor girl as it wasn't gentlemanly. The captain noticing his rank slipping grabbed his subordinate comrad but unfortunately this young pirate had been planning a mutiny as the rest of the pirate crew had had enough of the captain's often ill-thought-out snap decisions and the pirates wrestled the captain to the ground and tied him up with the ropes holding the islander letting her go in the process and she slipped away into the fog.

Scared and alone the pirates turned their new leader who instructed the pirates to sing and brought out a fiddle to play. Believing the pirate was mad but also believing anything was worth a try at this moment they did as he said and soon saw the islander returned to them. They went to grab her but the new captain stopped them and told the pirates that if they wanted to get off the island alive they would need her help. Being extra nice to the islander the pirates soon won their trust and the islander took them to a large cave where a spring welled from the wall and traveled in a stream across the floor before disappearing down a hole into a large pool. The new captain instructed his sailors to "drink up" and sat patiently on a rock not drinking the spring water and after quencing their thirst the pirates drew swords on each other to test their immortality. However they ran each other through with the swords. They didn't die but unlike the doctor who couldn't be cut they were in agony.

After pulling the swords out of their bodies they confronted the new captain as he hadn't touched a drop of the water. He told them that the elixer was made from this water and wasn't the same as the elixer itself. He proudly told the crew that had become the undead and had achieved the immortality they wanted so badly. Realizing they'd been tricked they untied their former captain and left the cave but as soon as they had done so they deliberately caused a landslide that blocked the cave entrance trapping the islander and the mutinous captain inside which the arrogant pirate hadn't anticipated. Now very scared and nowhere near as cocky as before the pirate began to panic in the dark but the islander kissed him on the lips and guided him down into the pool of spring water and showed him a secret passage underwater that took them out to another point on the island.

The pirates now following their old captain soon came to realize that despite him saying he knew where he was going they were hopelessly lost in the mist. One pirate got his leg trapped in a venus flytrap (yes, i didn't make that up), another got stuck in quicksand and one fell into a crevas with water inside and couldn't climb out and each time the pirate captain kept moving on and leaving the men behind. The remaining pirates eventually got sick of this arrogant behavior and stabbed the man with a poisonous barb from a plant they had encountered earlier. The captain twitching and foaming at the mouth was presumed dead and the remaining pirates found their way back to their ship and sailed away totally seething with anger at how their journey had been a failure.

The pirate that was saved by the islander traveled back to the castle at the center of the island and having no boat stayed there and eventually drank the elixer of life which the islanders prepared. He revealed to the islanders that he was the long descendant of the man who had married one of their kind years ago who had trown herself onto the rocks and from her blood had given birth to their race. Finally the islanders knew the truth of how they had become what they are and the man was praised as their leader.

Sailors would encounter the island from time to time in search of the strange people but it appeared that the news of the elixer had eluded the attention of the general public. However the immortal pirates would go on to have many adventures before one by one they died from things that kill undead. That was however except for the captain who grew tired of the chase for wealth and settled down in the carribean and married a voodoo priestess before cheating on her and then sailing the seas to escape a curse that followed him everywhere and caused bad luck wherever he went.

In some stories the Mandrakes can fly and/or have wings though that's most likely down to the fact that their island floats and so it only makes sense to have it. The Mandrake are also known as Incubus and Succubus in religious references and are fallen angels known for their rampant sex habits though there's no mention of this in any of the original stories and it's most likely spawned from the fact they kiss people to enable them to breathe underwater. They are also the inspiration for mermaids and sirens due to the fact their singing lures men to the rocks in the fog and because of their great swimming ability. Water Babies are also supposed to be inspired from the children that lead their parents to the water and in some depictions they are turtles as their island is sometimes mentioned as being the shape of a turtle shell which later became the idea that it was built on the back of a flying turtle. Being turtles also led to the idea of the Kappa who are turtle-like creatures that lure children into the water. It's worth noting that although there is a lot of confusion between the tale of the Mandrake and the tale of Atlantis they are in fact two separate folklore tales. Being flying spirits of the sea they are sometimes depicted as seagulls, ducks, geese or swans, being half human and half a water fowl or being able to transform into these creatures from entirely human form and this has also lead to the creation of the story of Swan Lake. Mandrake carrots were also said to be an alchemical ingredient that are so rare that a wizard would give their index fingers on the rumors that one exists. There are elements of the story that are used in Gulliver's Travels and Treasure Island and the fabled Well of Life or Fountain of Youth appears in many other legends since. It's worth mentioning that despite the story containing numerous things that we associate with a later date this story exists way before Georgian times and the pirates mentioned are likely to be Vikings rather than Boogies.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Mandrakes Explained", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/plain", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "67" }