452 ©fant "bore, "bege"?^/, anil "bijric/. 



influence the growth of Mushrooms, and in Essex there is an old 

 saying that 



" When the moon is at the full, 



Mushrooms you may freely pull ; 

 But when the moon is on the wane. 

 Wait ere you think to pluck again." 



There is an old belief that Mushrooms which grow near iron, 

 copper, or other metals, are poisonous ; the same idea is found 

 in the custom of putting a piece of metal in the water used for 

 boiling Mushrooms, in order that it should attracft and detach any 



poison from the Mushrooms, and thus render them innocuous. 



Bacon characfterises Mushrooms as " venereous meat," but Gerarde 

 remarks that "few of them are good to be eaten, and most of them 

 do suffocate and strangle the eater. Therefore, I give my advice 

 unto those that love such strange and new-fangled meates, to 

 beware of licking honey among thornes, least the sweetnesse of the 

 one do not countervaile the sharpnesse and pricking of the other." 



The Burman, if he comes across Mushrooms at the beginning 



of a journey, considers it as a most fortunate omen. Dream 



oracles state that Mushrooms forbode fleeting happiness ; and 

 that to dream of gathering them indicates a lack of attachment on 

 the part of lover or consort. 



MUSTARD. — Among the Jews, " Small as a grain of Mus- 

 tard-seed" was a common comparison; and our Saviour referred 

 to it as being "the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the 

 greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the 

 air come and lodge in the branches thereof " (Matthew xiii., 31, 32). 

 The Mustard-tree here alluded to is not, however, the English 

 Mustard {Sinapis nigra), but a tree called by the Arabs Khardal 

 [Salvadora Persica), a tree with numerous branches, among which 

 birds may take shelter, while the seed is exceedingly small. In the 



north-west of India, this plant is known as Kharjal. One of the 



Sanscrit names given to the Mustard-tree is the She-devil or 

 Witch. By means of the seed the Hindus discover witches. 

 During the night they light lamps and fill certain vessels with water, 

 into which they gently drop Mustard-seed oil, pronouncing the 

 while the name of every woman in the village. If, during this 

 ceremony, as they pronounce the name of a woman, they notice the 

 shadow of a female in the water, it is a sure sign that such woman 



is a witch. In India, the Mustard-seed symbolises generation : 



thus, in the Hindu myth of the ' Rose of Bakawali,' the king of 

 Ceylon destroys the temple in which the nymph Bakawali is incar- 

 cerated ; having been condemned by Indra to remain there trans- 

 formed into marble for the space of twelve years. A husbandman 

 ploughs over the site of this temple, and sows a Mustard-seed. In 

 course of time the Mustard ripens, is gathered, pressed, boiled, and 

 the oil extracted. According to the custom of his class, the hus- 

 bandman first tastes it, and then his wife : immediately she, who 



