Chap. 7.] 
REMEDIES DERITED EROM THE MOLE. 
429 
person whom I remember seeing myself when young. He 
tells us that the plant cynocephalia/^ known in Egypt as 
osiritis/' is useful for divination, and is a preservative against 
all the malpractices of magic, but that if a person takes it out 
of the ground entire, he will die upon, the spot. He asserts, 
also, that he himself had raised the spirits^^ of the dead, in 
order to make enquiry of Homer in reference to his native 
country and his parents ; but he does not dare, he tells us, 
disclose the answer he received. 
CHAP. 7. (3.) — OPINIONS OF THE MAGICIANS RELATIVE TO THE 
MOLE. FIVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT. 
Let the following stand as a remarkable proof of the frivo- 
lous nature of the magic art. Of all animals it is the mole 
that the magicians admire most ! a creature that has been 
stamped with condemnation by I^ature in so many ways ; 
doomed as it is to perpetual blindness,^^ and adding to this 
darkness a life of gloom in the depths of the earth, and a state 
more nearly resembling that of the dead and buried. There 
is no animal in the entrails of which they put such implicit 
faith, no animal, they think, better suited for the rites of reli- 
gion ; so much so, indeed, that if a person swallows the heart of 
a mole, fresh from the body and still palpitating, lie will receive 
the gift of divination, they assure us, and a foreknowledge of 
future events. Tooth-ache, they assert, may be cured by 
taking the tooth of a live mole, and attaching it to the body. 
As to other statements of theirs relative to this animal, we 
shall draw attention to them on the fitting occasions, and shall 
only add here that one of the most probable of all their asser- 
tions is, that the mole neutralizes the bite of the shrew-mouse; 
seeing that, as already^^ stated, the very earth even that is 
found in the rut of a cart-wheel, acts as a remedy in such a 
case. 
47 See B. XXV. c. 80. 
*s Like tlie assertions of the famous impostor of the close of the last 
century, Count Cagliostro. 
A mistake, of course ; and one for which there is little excuse, as its 
eyes are easily perceptihle. It is not improbable, however, that it was an 
impression with the ancients that its sight is impeded by the horny covering 
of its eyes. In B. xxix. c. 27.. 
