find,’ because it made pigs prolific, and fertilised bread-fruit trees and yam-plots.  In Scotland, too, ’stones were called by the names of the limbs they resembled, as “eye-stane,” “head-stane.”  A patient washed the affected part of his body, and rubbed it well with the stone corresponding.’ {147a} In precisely the same way, the mandrake root, being thought to resemble the human body, was credited with human and superhuman powers.  Josephus mentions {147b} a plant ’not easily caught, which slips away from them that wish to gather it, and never stands still’ till certain repulsive rites are performed.  These rites cannot well be reported here, but they are quite familiar to Red Indian and to Bushman magic.  Another way to dig the plant spoken of by Josephus is by aid of the dog, as in the German superstition quoted from Grimm.  AElian also recommends the use of the dog to pluck the herb aglaophotis, which shines at night. {147c} When the dog has dragged up the root, and died of terror, his body is to be buried on the spot with religious honours and secret sacred rites.

So much for mandragora, which, like the healing potato, has to be acquired stealthily and with peril.  Now let us examine the Homeric herb moly.  The plant is thus introduced by Homer:  In the tenth book of the ‘Odyssey,’ Circe has turned Odysseus’s men into swine.  He sets forth to rescue them, trusting only to his sword.  The god Hermes meets him, and offers him ‘a charmed herb,’ ‘this herb of grace’ ([Greek]) whereby he may subdue the magic wiles of Circe.

The plant is described by Homer with some minuteness.  ’It was black at the root, but the flower was like to milk.  “Moly,” the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal men to dig, howbeit with the gods all things are possible.’  The etymologies given of ‘moly’ are almost as numerous as the etymologists.  One derivation, from the old ‘Turanian’ tongue of Accadia, will be examined later.  The Scholiast offers the derivation ’[Greek], to make charms of no avail’; but this is exactly like Professor Blackie’s etymological discovery that Erinys is derived from [Greek]:  ’he might as well derive critic from criticise.’ {148} The Scholiast adds that moly caused death to the person who dragged it out of the ground.  This identification of moly with mandrake is probably based on Homer’s remark that moly is ‘hard to dig.’  The black root and white flower of moly are quite unlike the yellow flower and white fleshy root ascribed by Pliny to mandrake.  Only confusion is caused by regarding the two magical herbs as identical.

But why are any herbs or roots magical?  While some scholars, like De Gubernatis, seek an explanation in supposed myths about clouds and stars, it is enough for our purpose to observe that herbs really have medicinal properties, and that untutored people invariably confound medicine with magic.  A plant or root is thought to possess virtue, not only when swallowed in powder or decoction, but when carried in the hand.  St. John’s wort and rowan berries, like the Homeric moly, still ’make evil charms of none avail;’