people and simple women
believe; for the roots which are carried about by impostors are made of
the roots of canes, briony, and other plants.' And the method of
manufacture is then explained by the erudite doctor. It is evident from
what has been cited that the prevalence of the superstition, and the
existence of the German _erdmann_, were matters of common knowledge in
the latter half of the seventeenth century.

But the superstition can be traced still later, for as recently as 1810
some of these root-images were to be seen on sale in certain parts of
France, and were purchased as love-charms. It is said that even now at
this very day bits of the _Mandragoras officinalis_ are worn by the
young men and maidens of Greece to bring them fortune in their
love-affairs.

In some parts of England--viz., in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and
Somersetshire--the briony is called mandrake, and a small portion of the
root is frequently given to horses among their food to make them sleek
and improve their condition, and it is still also sold 'for medicinal
and other purposes.' Yet in other places it is called 'Devil's Food,'
because Satan is supposed to be perpetually watching over it and to
jealously guard its magical properties. It is partly on this account,
and partly because of its supposed effect in stimulating the passions,
that the Arabs sometimes call the mandrake Tuphacel-sheitan, or Devil's
Apple, although it is otherwise known as the Stone Apple. In many parts
of Europe the mandrake is believed to possess, in common with some other
plants, the power of opening locks and unshoeing horses.

The belief that the mandrake had some peculiar association with the
devil has made it a favourite plant with sorcerers and workers of
enchantment in all ages. Lord Bacon refers to it as a favourite in his
time, 'whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the
form of a face at the top of the root,' and leaving the natural threads
of the root 'to make a broad beard down to the foot.' Mr. Moncure
Conway, however, says that the superstition rightly belonging to the
mandrake was often transferred to other roots--probably in ignorance as
to the identity of the real plant.

'Thus,' he says, 'the author of Secrets du Petit Albert says that a
peasant had a bryonia root of human shape, which he received from a
gipsy. He buried it at a lucky conjunction of the moon with Venus' (the
reader will not fail to note the reference to