of immortality, and the juice itself'--a
confusion not without analogy in some of the superstitions narrated of
the mandrake. But of old Soma was drunk as mead was drunk by the
Scandinavians, before and after battle. It gave power and good fortune
as well as light and happiness, and when elevated into a god was
supposed to be the origin of all creation.

Now, of the _Sarcostemma_ it is to be noted that it belongs to the
family of _Asclepiadaceae_, which have all something more or less
'fleshy' looking about some parts of them, which, like the _Apocyneae_,
were in the old world credited with medicinal properties, and which are
generally acrid, stimulating, and astringent. There are many poisonous
members of the family, such as the dog's-bane and wolf's-bane of our own
country, favourite plants with the enchanters, while the cowplant of
Ceylon is of the same species.

In Garrett's Dictionary of India it is stated that the Soma of the Vedas
is no longer known in India, and the same statement is repeated by many
writers. It is certainly not indubitable that the _Sarcostemma
viminalis_ was the plant of wondrous virtues that was deified. On the
other hand, we find that these ascribed virtues closely resemble those
attributed to the mandrake, and it is known that the Aryan people
received many of their ideas and superstitions from the old Jewish
tribes.

We have seen, further, that belief in the peculiar power of the mandrake
in certain directions was a settled belief at a very early period of the
Jewish history, and we thus arrive at the very probable suggestion that
the original Soma was neither more nor less than the mandrake of Reuben,
the 'Baaras root' of Josephus, the mandragoras of the Greeks, the moly
of Homer, the mandragora of Shakespeare, the mandragen of Germany, and
the mandrake, again, of England.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEA AND ITS LEGENDS.

One of the oldest superstitions connected with the sea is undoubtedly
that which associated peril with the malefic influence of some
individual on shipboard. We find it in the case of the seamen of Joppa,
who, when overtaken by a 'mighty tempest' on the voyage to Tarshish,
said to each other, 'Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for
whose cause this evil is cast upon us.' The lot, as we know, fell upon
Jonah, and after some vain wrestling with the inevitable, the men at
last 'took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased
from her raging.