e mandrake's charnel leaves at night."

But these mandrake fables are mostly of foreign extraction and of very
ancient date. Dr. Daubeny, in his "Roman Husbandry," has given a curious
drawing from the Vienna MS. of Dioscorides in the fifth century,
representing the Goddess of Discovery presenting to Dioscorides the root
of the mandrake (of thoroughly human shape), which she has just pulled
up, while the unfortunate dog which had been employed for that purpose
is depicted in the agonies of death.

Basil, writes Lord Bacon in his "Natural History," if exposed too much
to the sun, changes into wild thyme; and a Bavarian piece of folk-lore
tells us that the person who, during an eclipse of the sun, throws an
offering of palm with crumbs on the fire, will never be harmed by the
sun. In Hesse, it is affirmed that with knots tied in willow one may
slay a distant enemy; and according to a belief current in Iceland, the
_Caltha palustris_, if taken with certain ceremonies and carried about,
will prevent the bearer from having an angry word spoken to him. The
virtues of the dittany were famous as far back as Plutarch's time, and
Gerarde speaks of its marvellous efficacy in drawing forth splinters of
wood, &c., and in the healing of wounds, especially those "made with
envenomed weapons, arrows shot out of guns, and such like."

Then there is the old tradition to the effect that if boughs of oak be
put into the earth, they will bring forth wild vines; and among the
supernatural qualities of the holly recorded by Pliny, we are told that
its flowers cause water to freeze, that it repels lightning, and that if
a staff of its wood be thrown at any animal, even if it fall short of
touching it, the animal will be so subdued by its influence as to return
and lie down by it. Speaking, too, of the virtues of the peony, he thus
writes:--"It hath been long received, and confirmed by divers trials,
that the root of the male peony dried, tied to the necke, doth helpe the
falling sickness, and likewise the incubus, which we call the mare. The
cause of both these diseases, and especially of the epilepsie from the
stomach, is the grossness of the vapours, which rise and enter into the
cells of the brain, and therefore the working is by extreme and subtle
alternation which that simple hath." Worn as an amulet, the peony was a
popular preservative against enchantment.

Footnotes:

1. _Fraser's Magazine_ 1870, p. 709.

2. "Plant Lore Legends