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The prevalence of stories in the mythologies of various cultures in which a person is created by human agency alone - from Galatea to the Golems - bear evidence to the compelling nature of such suppositions. In the medieval discipline of alchemy, huge amounts of effort were devoted to elaborating and analysing the concept of the homunculus. This creature, in general a theoretical construct although some chymists claimed to have created it in a laboratory, was specifically envisioned as a laboratory-grown man who, although theology forbade its having an immortal soul, would have anomalous superhuman properties due to its circumstances of conception and growth. More generally, the theme and potential creatability of the homunculus served as both thought-experiment and motivator for those who wished to explore the same questions that surround the notion of artificially-created life in present-day scientific endeavour.

Forebears and counterparts of the homunculus in folklore and literature.

One familiar example of this motif of the artificial man can be seen in the common folk-tale narrative common to tales such as Tom Thumb (5) and Thumbelina in which a couple, unable to bear children, are apprized by some wise old person (in Tom Thumb, this role goes to Merlin) of a method to make for themselves a child by other means. The child is generated by the couple by the planting of a seed that grows a flower inside which the child is hiding, or by cracking open a rock given them by a witch, or some other similar magical mechanism; the child matures rapidly to a precocious intellect, and invariably proves to be of anomalously tiny size - indeed a mannikin, the word itself an English calque of "homunculus". Here we see the first hints of the theme of precocity in the artificial person.
Another prominent instance of a homunculus theme in legend may be seen in the cloud of mythology surrounding the mandrake, Mandragora officinarum, the classic "witches' herb"; its root, which can grow into remarkably anthropomorphic forms, was historically harvested for occult purposes and carved to accentuate its similarity to the human form. These creatures were credited with the ability to multiply money, fend off the evil eye, and a number of other magical uses. In addition, it was reputed to be used in witches' rites for its narcotic effects, and thus obtained an occult reputation and association with demonic forces. (10) Its association with humankind and with soulless sorcery continued

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