"Living mortals hearing them run mad."

Hence, various precautions were adopted. According to Pliny, "When they
intended to take up the root of this plant, they took the wind thereof,
and with a sword describing three circles about it, they digged it up,
looking towards the west." Another old authority informs us that he "Who
would take it up, in common prudence should tie a dog to it to
accomplish his purpose, as if he did it himself, he would shortly die."
Moore gives this warning:--

"The phantom shapes--oh, touch them not
That appal the maiden's sight,
Look in the fleshy mandrake's stem,
That shrieks when plucked at night."

To quote one or two more illustrations, we may mention the famous lily
at Lauenberg, which is said to have sprung up when a poor and beautiful
girl was spirited away out of the clutches of a dissolute baron. It made
its appearance annually, an event which was awaited with much interest
by the inhabitants of the Hartz, many of whom made a pilgrimage to
behold it. "They returned to their homes," it is said, "overpowered by
its dazzling beauty, and asserting that its splendour was so great that
it shed beams of light on the valley below."

Similarly, we are told how the common break-fern flowers but once a
year, at midnight, on Michaelmas Eve, when it displays a small blue
flower, which vanishes at the approach of dawn. According to a piece of
folk-lore current in Bohemia and the Tyrol, the fern-seed shines like
glittering gold at the season, so that there is no chance of missing its
appearance, especially as it has its sundry mystic properties which are
described elsewhere.

Professor Mannhardt relates a strange legend current in Mecklenburg to
the effect that in a certain secluded and barren spot, where a murder
had been committed, there grows up every day at noon a peculiarly-shaped
thistle, unlike any other of its kind. On inspection there are to be
seen human arms, hands, and heads, and as soon as twelve heads have
appeared, the weird plant vanishes. It is further added that on one
occasion a shepherd happened to pass the mysterious spot where the
thistle was growing, when instantly his arms were paralysed and his
staff became tinder. Accounts of these fabulous trees and plants have in
years gone been very numerous, and have not yet wholly died out,
surviving in the legendary tales of most countries. In some instances,
too, it would seem that certain trees like animals