What Was REALLY Inside a Medieval Love Potion? (It's Disgusting)

Tom is brewing a medieval love potion that smells like a wet dog in a swamp, and even Isabel's cat is walking out. We dig into real medieval recipes: screaming mandrake roots, earthworms and periwinkle, the Church's five-year penance, and what Ovid and Andreas Capellanus said actually works. Then somebody drinks the second cup. Chapters: 0:00 A potion that smells like a swamp 0:23 Screaming roots and crushed worms 0:50 Step 1: The screaming mandrake 1:58 Poison, fakes and Joan of Arc 2:54 Step 2: Worms for dinner 3:50 The potion that ruined Tristan 4:19 Step 3: The Church says no 5:03 When love was a disease 5:39 Step 4: What actually worked 6:42 Tom's eleven-verse poem 7:34 Myth or true? 7:50 The second cup 8:30 Fourteen cats Would you ever drink a love potion, or is a good compliment safer? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe so you don't miss what happens next: Part 2 is about how medieval people really chose who to marry. Science notes: Mandrake really is poisonous and contains tropane alkaloids like those in deadly nightshade; the screaming root and the dog-and-rope trick are legend. Hildegard of Bingen (Physica), Burchard of Worms (Corrector), Bernard of Gordon (Lilium medicinae), Ovid (Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris), Andreas Capellanus (De amore) and William Turner's 1551 herbal are real sources; the Albertus Magnus-attributed "Secrets" book is pseudepigraphic. There is no evidence any love potion ever worked. The story is fiction — the science is real. #whatif #animation #medieval