What are Homunculi? A Witch Wednesday article.
After watching the beautiful series Small Prophets, which I highly recommend watching, I just had to do a little Witchy Wednesday on the creatures at the centre of the series. If you haven't seen it yet then please come back once you have! It is currently available on BBC iPlayer.
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Small Prophets is a British television sitcom created, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook. Set in and around Manchester, it stars Pearce Quigley as a man who turns to alchemy and homunculi in an attempt to learn what happened after his girlfriend disappeared, with the cast also including Crook, Michael Palin, Lauren Patel, Sophie Willan and Jon Pointing. The series premiered on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on 9 February 2026. Information from Wikipedia.
 Lovely write up on the TV series here.  Now to the History! |
A homunculus (Latin for "little man") refers to a microscopic, fully formed human figure, historically believed to exist within sperm or eggs, or artificially created through alchemy. Modern usage often refers to a "cortical homunculus" a distorted map of the body representing the brain's sensory or motor cortex, or small human-like beings in literature.
Historical Alchemical Method (Paracelsus)
According to the 15th-century alchemist Paracelsus, a homunculus could be created as follows:
Ingredients: Human sperm and other substances, sometimes including blood.
Method: Place the sperm in a sealed glass vial (gourd) and let it putrefy within horse dung for 40 days until it begins to show signs of life and movement.
Nourishment: The creature must be fed with the "Arcanum of Man's blood" (human blood) for 40 weeks while kept at a constant, even heat, similar to a horse's womb.
Outcome: A small, transparent human-like creature that grows into a miniature infant.
Warning: Historically, these methods are purely mythical and fall under the realm of alchemy and fiction, not science!
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| Basil Valentine contemplates a chemical jar containing homunculi of a man and woman holding hands, and a child emanating from them (alchemical symbol of conception); he is suddenly visited by Sabine Stuart de Chevalier, who reveals that she has the key to his works and crowns him as the king of alchemists. Etching by J. Le Roy, ca. 1781, after Hostoul after Sabine Stuart de Chevalier. Image sourced from Welcome Collection public domain mark. |
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| Image sourced from Welcome Collection public domain mark. Thank you for visiting my blog, I hope you enjoyed my post if you did please join me again next week for another Witchy Wednesday article. Kat 😊 |
