ries after our era, and _he_ says that 'wild
rue was called moly by the Cappadocians.' Rue, like rosemary, and indeed
like most herbs, has its magical repute, and if we supposed that Homer's
moly was rue, there would be some interest in the knowledge. Rue was
called 'herb of grace' in English, holy water was sprinkled with it, and
the name is a translation of Homer's [Greek]. Perhaps rue was used in
sprinkling, because in pre-Christian times rue had, by itself, power
against sprites and powers of evil. Our ancestors may have thought it as
well to combine the old charm of rue and the new Christian potency of
holy water. Thus there would be a distinct analogy between Homeric moly
and English 'herb of grace.'

'Euphrasy and rue' were employed to purge and purify mortal eyes. Pliny
is very learned about the magical virtues of rue. Just as the stolen
potato is sovran for rheumatism, so 'rue stolen thriveth the best.' The
Samoans think that their most valued vegetables were stolen from heaven
by a Samoan visitor. {152a} It is remarkable that rue, according to
Pliny, is killed by the touch of a woman in the same way as, according to
Josephus, the mandrake is tamed. {152b} These passages prove that the
classical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women as
the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed Pliny {152c} describes a magical
manner of defending the crops from blight, by aid of women, which is
actually practised in America by the Red Men. {152d}

Here, then, are proofs enough that rue was magical outside of Cappadocia.
But this is not an argument on Mr. Brown's lines. The Cappadocians
called rue 'moly'; what language, he asks, was spoken by the
Cappadocians? Prof. Sayce (who knows so many tongues) says that 'we know
next to nothing of the language of the Cappadocians, or of the Moschi who
lived in the same locality.' But where Prof. Sayce is, the Hittites, if
we may say so respectfully, are not very far off. In this case he thinks
the Moschi (though he admits we know next to nothing about it) 'seem to
have spoken a language allied to that of the Cappadocians and Hittites.'
That is to say, it is not impossible that the language of the Moschi,
about which next to nothing is known, may have been allied to that of the
Cappadocians, about which we know next to nothing. All that we do know
in this case is, that four hundred years after Christ the dwellers in
Cappadocia employed a word 'moly,' which ha