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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 attraffi and detach any
poison from the Mushrooms, and thus render them innocuous.------
Bacon characiferises 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.
M U S T A R D .—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 (Simpis nigra), but a tree called by the Arabs Khardal
(Salvadora Pérsica), 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. B y 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 incarcerated
; having been condemned by Indra to remain there transformed
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 husbandman
first tastes it, and then his wife : immediately she, who
pfant bore, begeqa/, anil byric/. 453
before had been childless, conceives, and nine months afterwards
gives to the world a daughter (Bakawali), beauteous as a fairy.
M Y R O B A L A N .—The Myrobalan Plum-tree produces a fruit
similar to a Cherry, but containing only a juice of so disagreeable a
flavour that the very birds refuse to feed upon it : the fruit, however
is much employed in Indian medicines. According to Hindu
toadition, the wife of Somaçarman struck twice with a wand a Myro-
balan-tree, whereupon the tree rose from the earth with her. and
carrying her away, at last placed her on a golden hill in a ©olden
town. °
d ^ exudation from the tree Balsamodendron
M y r fa ; but the precious resin was held by the ancients to
have been first produced by the tears of Myrrha, daughter of Cinyras,
King of Cyprus, and mother of Adonis. Flying from the avenging
sword of her father, for whom shd had conceived an incestuoul
passion, the guilty Myrrha, after long and weary wanderings,
reached the Arabian continent, and at length, in the Sabæan fields,
overcome with fatigue and the misery of her situation, prayed with
her dying breath to the gods to accept her penitence and to bestow
upon her, as a punishment for her sin, a middle state “ betwixt the
realms above and those below.” “ Some other form,” cries she,
to wretched Myrrha give, nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.”
“ The prayers of penitents are never vain ;
A t least she did her last request obtain.
For while she spake the ground began to rise
And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs ;
Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide.
A firm foundation for the trunk provide :
Her solid bones convert to solid wood.
To pith her marrow, and to sap her blood ;
Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind
Her tender skin is hardened into rind.
And now the rising tree her womb invests,
Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breastS;
And shades her neck ; when, weaty with delay,
She sunk her head within, and met it half the way.
And though with outward shape she lost her sense,
With bitter tears she wept her last offeijce ;
And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain,
For still the precious drops her name xeiamT—Dryden,
Myrrh is one of the ingredients of th© sacred, ointment or oil of th©.
Jews, with which were anointed the Tabernaçle, the Ark, tho
altars, and the sacred vessels (Exodus xxx.,) It was also used tq.
consecrate Aaron and his sons. The purification of wopien, as
ordained by the Jewish law, lasted one year; the first six iponths
being accomplished with oil of Myrrh, and the rest with other sweet
After our Lord’s death, Nicodemus brought a mixtur©
ot Myrrh and Aloes, about an hundred pounds weight, that his
body might be embalmed. Myrrh formed part of the celebrated
Kuphi oi the Egyptians—a preparation used in fumigations an4
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