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holding scissors in her hands, Atropos gathers up the various-sized
clues of thread which, as the chief of the inexorable Fates, it is
her privilege to cut according to the length of the persons’ lives
they represent. Another name bestowed by the Greeks upon
the Mandrake was that of Circeium, derived from Circe, the weird
daughter of Sol and Perseis, celebrated for her witchcraft and
knowledge of magic and venomous herbs. From the earliest
ages, the Atropa Mandragora appears to have been deemed a mystic
plant by the inhabitants of Eastern countries, and to have been
regarded by them as stimulating the passions ; on which account
it is still used for preparing love potions. _ It is generally believed
that the Mandrake is the same plant which the ancient Hebrews
called Dudaim ; and that these people held it in the highest esteem
in Jacob’s time is evident from the notice in Genesis (xxx., 14) of
Reuben finding it and carrying the plant to his mother Leah.
From the remotest antiquity the Mandrakes were reputed in the
East to possess the property of removing sterility; hence Rachel’s
desire to obtain from Leah the plants that Reuben had found and
given to his mother. It is certain that the Atropa Mandragora was
looked upon by the ancients as something more than a mere vegetable,
and, in facil, as an embodiment of some unquiet or evil spirit.
In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century,
the Mandrake is said to shine in the night like a candle. The
Arabs call it the Devil’s Candle, because of this nocturnal shining
appearance; and in allusion to this peculiarity, Moore says of it in
‘ Lalla Rookh ’ ;—
“ Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
The Mandrake’s charnel leaves at night.”
From times long past has come down the legend that the Mandrake
is a dweller in the dark places of the earth, and that it thrives
under the shadow of the gallows, being nourished by the exhalations
or fiesh of the criminals executed on the gibbet. Amongst other
mysterious attributes, we are told by old writers that the Mandrake
has the power of emitting sounds, and that when it is pulled out of
the ground, it utters dreadful shrieks and groans, as if possessed of
sensibility. Shakspeare thus decribes these terrible cries :—
“ Would curses kill, as doth the Mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, and harsh, and horrible to hear.”
And Moore relates in verse another tradition—
“ The phantom shapes—-oh touch them not—
That appal the maiden’s sight.
Lurk in the fleshy Mandrake’s stem
That shrieks when plucked at night. ”
These screams were so horrible and awe-inspiring, that Shakspeare
tells us the eifebl was maddening—
“ And shrieks like Mandrakes, torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, ran mad.”
One other terrible attribute of this ill-omened plant was its power,
by its pestilential eiïeéls, severely to injure, if not, indeed, to strike
with death, the person who had the hardihood to drag the root from
its bed. To guard against these dangers, therefore, the surrounding
soil was removed, and the plant securely fastened to the tail of a
dog which was then driven away, and thus pulled up the root.
Colmnella, in his direffiions for the site of gardens, says they may
be formed where
“ The Mandrakes flowers
Produce, whose root shows half a man, whose juice
With madness strikes.”
The Romans seem to have been very superstitious as to the manner
of taking up the root. According to Pliny, those who undertook
the office were careful to stand so that the wind was at their back ;
and before commencing to dig, they made three crrcles around
the plant with the point of the sword; then, turning to the west,
they proceeded to take it up. Probably the plant’s value as a narcotic
and restorative alone induced the gathering of so dangerous
a ro o t In mediæval times, when ignorance and credulity
were déminant in Europe, the mountebank quack doffiors palmed
on the credulous fiélitious Mandrake-roots, which were largely sold
as preventives against mischief and dangers. Speaking of this
superstition. Lord Bacon, in his ‘ Natural History,’ says, “ Some
plants there are, but rare, that have a mossie or downie root, and
likewise that have a number of threads, like beards, as Mandrakes,
whereof witches and imposteurs make an ugly image, giving it the
forme of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings
to make a broad beard down to the foot.” Madame de Genhs
speaks of an author who gravely gives a long description of the
little idols which were supposed to be roots of the Mandrake, and
adds that they must be wrapped up m a piece of sheet, for that then
thev will bring unceasing good luck. The same author, she says,
gives this name Mandragora (Mandrake) to certain sprites that are
procured from an egg that must be hatched in a particular manner
L d from which comes forth a little monster (half chick and half
man) that must be kept in a secret chamber, and fed with the
seed of Spikenard, and that then it will prophesy every day. Thus
it can make its master lucky at play, discover treasures to him
and foretell what is to happen The credulous people of
some nations have believed that the root of the Mandrake, if dislodged
from the ground, becomes the good genius of the possessor,
and not only cures a host of maladies, but discovers hidden treasures ;
doubling the amount of money locked up m a box, keeping ofi evil
spirits, a a in g as a love charm, and rendering other notable services.
According to Pliny, the Mandrake was sometimes coniormed like
a man at others like a woman : the male was white, the female
black In the mountain of Pistoia, the peasants think they can
trace the form of a man in the leaves of the Mandrake, and of the
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