ebrews
had the image of the god or goddess stamped upon them, we are in view of
a fact of much interest.' The interest becomes greater when we learn
that in parts of Lancashire there exists a precisely similar custom of
making cakes in honour of the Queen of Heaven.

From these facts, the discovery of two buns, each marked with a cross,
in Herculaneum, and other evidences, we are driven to the conclusion
that the 'hot-cross buns' of Christian England are in reality but a
relic of moon-worship!

CHAPTER V.

THE DEVIL'S CANDLE.

So much legendary lore and so many strange fables have had their origin
in the mandrake, or the 'Devil's Candle,' as the Arabians call it, that
it is worth while to endeavour to trace if any, and what, analogy there
be between it and the mandragoras of the Greeks and the Soma of the
Indian mythology.

The mandrake is so called from the German _Mandragen_, 'resembling
man'--at least, so says Mr. Thiselton-Dyer; but this derivation is not
quite satisfactory. The botanical name is _Mandragora officinalis_, and
sometimes the May-apple, or _Podophyllum peltatum_, is also called
mandrake; but the actual plant of fact and fancy belongs to the
_Solanum_, or potato family.

Although one may doubt if the English name be really derived from the
German _Mandragen_, it is certain that the Germans have long regarded
the plant as something uncanny. Other names which they have for it are
_Zauberwurzel_, or Sorcerer's Root, and _Hexenmaennchen_, or Witch's
Mannikin, while they made little dolls or idols from it, which they
regarded with superstitious veneration, and called _Erdmann_, or
Earth-man.

Yet in other places, according to one authority, the mandrake was
popularly supposed to be 'perpetually watched over by Satan; and if it
be pulled up at certain holy times and with certain invocations, the
evil spirit will appear to do the bidding of the practitioner.' A
superstition once common in the South of England was that the mandrake
had a human heart at its root, and, according to Timbs, it was generally
believed that the person who pulled it would instantaneously fall dead;
that the root shrieked or groaned whenever separated from the earth; and
that whoever heard the shriek would either die shortly afterwards or
become afflicted with madness.

To this last superstition there is direct reference made by Shakespeare
in Romeo and Juliet:

'And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,