f superstitious veneration by reason of its supernatural
character, the Germans made little idols of its root, which were
consulted as oracles. Indeed, so much credence was attached to these
images, that they were manufactured in very large quantities for
exportation to various other countries, and realised good prices.
Oftentimes substituted for the mandrake was the briony, which designing
people sold at a good profit. Gerarde informs us, "How the idle drones,
that have little or nothing to do but eat and drink, have bestowed some
of their time in carving the roots of briony, forming them to the shape
of men and women, which falsifying practice hath confirmed the error
amongst the simple and unlearned people, who have taken them upon their
report to be the true mandrakes." Oftentimes, too, the root of the
briony was trained to grow into certain eccentric shapes, which were
used as charms. Speaking of the mandrake, we may note that in France it
was regarded as a species of elf, and nicknamed _main de gloire_; in
connection with which Saint-Palaye describes a curious superstition:--
"When I asked a peasant one day why he was gathering mistletoe, he told
me that at the foot of the oaks on which the mistletoe grew he had a
mandrake; that this mandrake had lived in the earth from whence the
mistletoe sprang; that he was a kind of mole; that he who found him was
obliged to give him food--bread, meat, and some other nourishment; and
that he who had once given him food was obliged to give it every day,
and in the same quantity, without which the mandrake would assuredly
cause the forgetful one to die. Two of his countrymen, whom he named to
me, had, he said, lost their lives; but, as a recompense, this _main de
gloire_ returned on the morrow double what he had received the previous
day. If one paid cash for the _main de gloire's_ food one day, he would
find double the amount the following, and so with anything else. A
certain countryman, whom he mentioned as still living, and who had
become very rich, was believed to have owed his wealth to the fact that
he had found one of these _mains de gloire_." Many other equally curious
stories are told of the mandrake, a plant which, for its mystic
qualities, has perhaps been unsurpassed; and it is no wonder that it was
a dread object of superstitious fear, for Moore, speaking of its
appearance, says:--

"Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
Th