TURNER'S HERBAL 91 



not let it go furth, then all the mighte and pestilent poison of 

 the disease is brought so into the eare. And whilse the part 

 which is circled aboute dyeth and falleth awaye y* hole beast 

 is saved with the lose of a very small parte." 



Another piece of folk lore is remarkable because it is the only 

 instance in an English herbal of a belief in the effect of a human 

 being on a plant : " If ye woulde fayne have very large and 

 greate gourdes, then take sedes that growe there [in the sides]. 

 . . . And let weomen nether touche the yonge gourdes nor loke 

 upon them, for the only touchinge and sight e of weomen kille 

 the yonge gourdes." This belief he quotes from Pliny. 



Turner, again, is the only old herbalist who refers to the old 

 and widespread belief that larch was fire-proof. It was largely 

 used, he tells us, for laying under the tiles of newly-built houses, 

 as " a sure defence against burning," and he narrates at length 

 how Julius Caesar was unable to burn a tower built with larch. 

 On the old mandrake legend he is scathing. " The rootes 

 which are counterfited and made like litle puppettes and 

 mammettes which come to be sold in England in boxes with heir 

 [hair] and such forme as man hath, are nothyng elles but folishe 

 fened trifles and not naturall. For they are so trymmed of 

 crafty theves to mocke the poore people withall and to rob them 

 both of theyr wit and theyr money. I have in my tyme at 

 diverse tymes take up the rootes of mandrake out of the grounde 

 but I never saw any such thyng upon or in them as are in and 

 upon the pedlers rootes that are comenly to be solde in boxes. 

 It groweth not under galloses [gallows] as a certayn doting doctor 

 of Colon in his physick lecture dyd teach hys auditors." But 

 he accepts without question the belief in its efficacy as an 

 anaesthetic : " It is given to those who must be burned or cut 

 in some place that they should not fele the burning or cuttyng." 

 Of wine made of it, he says : " If they drynk thys drynke they 

 shall fele no payne, but they shall fall into a forgetfull and 

 slepishe drowsiness. Of the apples of mandrake, if a man smell 

 of them thei will make hym slepe and also if they be eaten. 



