MYSTIC PLANTS, 443 



and sills of the house, going over all, and soon it shall 

 go better with thee, and thou shalt come to thy own 

 if thou serve the mandrake right. Bathe it four 

 times every year, and as often wrap it in silk cloths 

 and lay it among thy best things, and thou need do 

 no more. The bath in which it has been bathed is 

 specially good. When thou goest to law, put the 

 mannikin under thy right arm, and thou shalt succeed, 

 whether right or wrong." 1 



Curious old figures of the traditional mandrake 

 are extant, of which we give copies. Stories of 

 its potency, and of marvels associated with its 

 possession, are numerous in Britain, France, and 

 Germany. 



Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows 

 Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans 

 At midnight hour, can scare the fiends away, 

 And make the mind prolific in its fancies. 2 



In a French work (dated 1718) a peasant is said to 

 have possessed a bryony root of human shape, which 

 he received from a gipsy. He buried it at a lucky 

 conjunction of the moon with Venus, in spring, and 

 on a Monday, in a grave, and sprinkled it with milk 

 in which three field-mice had been drowned. In a 



1 " Mystic Trees and Flowers," in " Eraser's Magazine," 

 December, 1870. 



2 Longfellow's " Spanish Student," p. 92. 



