MOLY AND MANDRAGORA.
'I have found out a new cure for rheumatism,' said the lady beside whom
it was my privilege to sit at dinner. 'You carry a potato about in your
pocket!'
Some one has written an amusing account of the behaviour of a man who is
finishing a book. He takes his ideas everywhere with him and broods over
them, even at dinner, in the pauses of conversation. But here was a lady
who kindly contributed to my studies and offered me folklore and
survivals in cultivated Kensington.
My mind had strayed from the potato cure to the New Zealand habit of
carrying a baked yam at night to frighten away ghosts, and to the old
English belief that a bit of bread kept in the pocket was sovereign
against evil spirits. Why should ghosts dread the food of mortals when
it is the custom of most races of mortals to feed ancestral ghosts? The
human mind works pretty rapidly, and all this had passed through my brain
while I replied, in tones of curiosity: 'A potato!'
'Yes; but it is not every potato that will do. I heard of the cure in
the country, and when we came up to town, and my husband was complaining
of rheumatism, I told one of the servants to get me a potato for Mr.
Johnson's rheumatism. "Yes, ma'am," said the man; "but it must be a
stolen potato." I had forgotten that. Well, one can't ask one's
servants to steal potatoes. It is easy in the country, where you can
pick one out of anybody's field.' 'And what did you do?' I asked. 'Oh,
I drove to Covent Garden and ordered a lot of fruit and flowers. While
the man was not looking, I stole a potato—a very little one. I don't
think there was any harm in it.' 'And did Mr. Johnson try the potato
cure?' 'Yes, he carried it in his pocket, and now he is quite well. I
told the doctor, and he says he knows of the cure, but he dares not
recommend it.'
How oddly superstitions survive! The central idea of this modern folly
about the potato is that you must pilfer the root. Let us work the idea
of the healing or magical herb backwards, from Kensington to European
folklore, and thence to classical times, to Homer, and to the Hottentots.
Turning first to Germany, we note the beliefs, not about the potato, but
about another vegetable, the mandrake. Of all roots, in German
superstition, the Alraun, or mandrake, is the most famous. The herb was
conceived of, in the savage fashion, as a living human person, a kind of
old witch-wife.
Again, the root has a human shape. 'If a hereditary thief who has
preserved his chastity gets hung,' the broad-leafed, yellow-flowered
mandrake grows up, in his likeness, beneath the gallows from which he is
suspended. The mandrake, like the moly, the magical herb of the Odyssey,
is 'hard for men to dig.' He who desires to possess a mandrake must stop
his ears with wax, so that he may not hear the deathly yells which the
plant utters as it is being dragged out of the earth. Then before
sunrise, on a Friday, the amateur goes out with a dog, 'all black,' makes
three crosses round the mandrake, loosens the soil about the root, ties
the root to the dog's tail, and offers the beast a piece of bread. The
dog runs at the bread, drags out the mandrake root, and falls dead,
killed by the horrible yell of the plant. The root is now taken up,
washed with wine, wrapped in silk, laid in a casket, bathed every Friday,
'and clothed in a little new white smock every new moon.' The mandrake
acts, if thus considerately treated, as a kind of familiar spirit. 'Every
piece of coin put to her over night is found doubled in the morning.'
Gipsy folklore, and the folklore of American children, keep this belief
in doubling deposits. The gipsies use the notion in what they call 'The
Great Trick.' Some foolish rustic makes up his money in a parcel which
he gives to the gipsy. The latter, after various ceremonies performed,
returns the parcel, which is to be buried. The money will be found
doubled by a certain date. Of course when the owner unburies the parcel
he finds nothing in it but brass buttons. In the same way, and with
pious confidence, the American boy buries a marble in a hollow log,
uttering the formula, 'What hasn't come here, come! what's here, stay
here!' and expects to find all the marbles he has ever lost. Let
us follow the belief in magical roots into the old Pagan world.
The ancients knew mandragora and the superstitions connected with
it very well. Dioscorides mentions mandragorus, or antimelon,
or dircæa, or Circæa, and says the Egyptians
call it apemoum, and Pythagoras 'anthropomorphon.'
In digging the root, Pliny says, 'there are some ceremonies observed,
first they that goe about this worke, look especially to this that the
wind be not in their face, but blow upon their backs. Then with
the point of a sword they draw three circles round about the plant,
which don, they dig it up afterwards with their face unto the west.'
Pliny says nothing of the fetich qualities of the plant, as credited
in modern and mediæval Germany, but mentions 'sufficient
it is with some bodies to cast them into sleep with the smel of mandrago.'
This is like Shakespeare's 'poppy and mandragora, and all
the drowsy syrups of the world.' Plato and Demosthenes also speak
of mandragora as a soporific. It is more to the purpose of magic that
Columella mentions 'the half-human mandragora.' Here we touch the
origin of the mandrake superstitions. The roots have a kind of fantastic
resemblance to the human shape; Pliny describes them as being 'of a
fleshy substance and tender.' Now it is one of the recognised principles
in magic, that things like each other, however superficially, affect each
other in a mystic way, and possess identical properties. Thus, in
Melanesia, according to Mr. Codrington, 'a stone in the shape of a
pig, of a bread-fruit, of a yam, was a most valuable find,' because it
made pigs prolific, and fertilised bread-fruit trees and yam-plots. In
Scotland, too, 'stones were called by the names of the limbs they
resembled, as "eye-stane," "head-stane." A patient washed the affected
part of his body, and rubbed it well with the stone corresponding.' In precisely the same way, the mandrake root, being thought to
resemble the human body, was credited with human and superhuman powers.
Josephus mentions a plant 'not easily caught, which slips away
from them that wish to gather it, and never stands still' till certain
repulsive rites are performed. These rites cannot well be reported here,
but they are quite familiar to Red Indian and to Bushman magic. Another
way to dig the plant spoken of by Josephus is by aid of the dog, as in
the German superstition quoted from Grimm. Ælian also recommends the
use of the dog to pluck the herb aglaophotis, which shines at night. When the dog has dragged up the root, and died of terror, his
body is to be buried on the spot with religious honours and secret sacred
rites.
So much for mandragora, which, like the healing potato, has to be
acquired stealthily and with peril. Now let us examine the Homeric herb
moly. The plant is thus introduced by Homer: In the tenth book of the
'Odyssey,' Circe has turned Odysseus's men into swine. He sets forth to
rescue them, trusting only to his sword. The god Hermes meets him, and
offers him 'a charmed herb,' 'this herb of grace' (φαρμακον
εσθλον) whereby he
may subdue the magic wiles of Circe.
The plant is described by Homer with some minuteness. 'It
was black at the root, but the flower was like to milk. "Moly,"
the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal men to dig, howbeit with
the gods all things are possible.' The etymologies given
of 'moly' are almost as numerous as the etymologists.
One derivation, from the old 'Turanian' tongue of Accadia,
will be examined later. The Scholiast offers the derivation 'μωλυειν,
to make charms of no avail'; but this is exactly like Professor
Blackie's etymological discovery that Erinys is derived from ερινυειν:
'he might as well derive critic from criticise.' The Scholiast adds that moly
caused death to the person who dragged it out of the ground. This
identification of moly with mandrake is probably based on Homer's remark
that moly is 'hard to dig.' The black root and white flower of moly are
quite unlike the yellow flower and white fleshy root ascribed by Pliny to
mandrake. Only confusion is caused by regarding the two magical herbs as
identical.
But why are any herbs or roots magical? While some scholars, like De
Gubernatis, seek an explanation in supposed myths about clouds and stars,
it is enough for our purpose to observe that herbs really have medicinal
properties, and that untutored people invariably confound medicine with
magic. A plant or root is thought to possess virtue, not only when
swallowed in powder or decoction, but when carried in the hand. St.
John's wort and rowan berries, like the Homeric moly, still 'make evil
charms of none avail;'
Rowan, ash, and red threed
Keep the devils from their speed,
says the Scotch rhyme. Any fanciful resemblance of leaf or flower or
root to a portion of the human body, any analogy based on colour, will
give a plant reputation for magical virtues. This habit of mind survives
from the savage condition. The Hottentots are great herbalists. Like
the Greeks, like the Germans, they expect supernatural aid from plants
and roots. Mr. Hahn, in his 'Tsui Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi
Khoi' (p. 82), gives the following examples:—
Dapper, in his description of Africa, p. 621, tells us:—'Some of them
wear round the neck roots, which they find far inland, in rivers, and
being on a journey they light them in a fire or chew them, if they
must sleep the night out in the field. They believe that these roots
keep off the wild animals. The roots they chew are spit out around
the spot where they encamp for the night; and in a similar way if they
set the roots alight, they blow the smoke and ashes about, believing
that the smell will keep the wild animals off.
I had often occasion to observe the practice of these superstitious
ceremonies, especially when we were in a part of the country where we
heard the roaring of the lions, or had the day previously met with the
footprints of the king of the beasts.
The Korannas also have these roots as safeguards with them. If a
Commando (a warlike expedition) goes out, every man will put such
roots in his pockets and in the pouch where he keeps his bullets,
believing that the arrows or bullets of the enemy have no effect, but
that his own bullets will surely kill the enemy. And also before they
lie down to sleep, they set these roots alight, and murmur, 'My
grandfather's root, bring sleep on the eyes of the lion and leopard
and the hyena. Make them blind, that they cannot find us, and cover
their noses, that they cannot smell us out.' Also, if they have
carried off large booty, or stolen cattle of the enemy, they light
these roots and say: 'We thank thee, our grandfather's root, that thou
hast given us cattle to eat. Let the enemy sleep, and lead him on the
wrong track, that he may not follow us until we have safely escaped.'
Another sort of shrub is called ābib. Herdsmen, especially, carry
pieces of its wood as charms, and if cattle or sheep have gone astray,
they burn a piece of it in the fire, that the wild animals may not
destroy them. And they believe that the cattle remain safe until they
can be found the next morning.
Schweinfurth found the same belief in magic herbs and roots among the
Bongoes and Niam Niams in 'The Heart of Africa.' The Bongoes believe,
like the Homeric Greeks, that 'certain roots ward off the evil influences
of spirits.' Like the German amateurs of the mandrake, they assert that
'there is no other resource for obtaining communication with spirits,
except by means of certain roots' (i. 306).
Our position is that the English magical potato, the German mandrake, the
Greek moly, are all survivals from a condition of mind like that in which
the Hottentots still pray to roots.
Now that we have brought mandragora and moly into connection with the
ordinary magical superstitions of savage peoples, let us see what is made
of the subject by another method. Mr. R. Brown, the learned and
industrious author of 'The Great Dionysiak Myth,' has investigated the
traditions about the Homeric moly. He first
'turns to Aryan philology.' Many guesses at the etymology
of 'moly' have been made. Curtius suggests mollis,
molvis, μωλυ-ς, akin to μαλακος,
'soft.' This does not suit Mr. Brown, who,
to begin with, is persuaded that the herb is not a magical herb, sans phrase, like those which the Hottentots use, but that the basis
of the myth 'is simply the effect of night upon the world of day.'
Now, as moly is a name in use among the gods, Mr. Brown thinks 'we
may fairly examine the hypothesis of a foreign origin of the term.'
Anyone who holds that certain Greek gods were borrowed from abroad,
may be allowed to believe that the gods used foreign words, and, as
Mr. Brown points out, there are foreign elements in various Homeric
names of imported articles, peoples, persons, and so forth. Where,
then, is a foreign word like moly, which might have reached Homer?
By a long process of research, Mr. Brown finds his word in ancient 'Akkadian.'
From Professor Sayce he borrows a reference to Apuleius Barbarus, about
whose life nothing is known, and whose date is vague. Apuleius
Barbarus may have lived about four centuries 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 φαρμακον εσθλον.
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. 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. These passages prove that the
classical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women as
the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed Pliny describes a magical
manner of defending the crops from blight, by aid of women, which is
actually practised in America by the Red Men.
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 had been Greek for at least
twelve hundred years. But Mr. Brown goes on to quote that one of the
languages of which we know next to nothing, Hittite, was 'probably allied
to Proto-Armenian, and perhaps Lykian, and was above all not Semitic.' In
any case 'the cuneiform mode of writing was used in Cappadocia at an
early period.' As even Professor Sayce declines to give more than a
tentative reading of a Cappadocian cuneiform inscription, it seems highly
rash to seek in this direction for an interpretation of a Homeric word
'moly,' used in Cappadocia very many centuries after the tablets were
scratched. But, on the evidence of the Babylonian character of the
cuneiform writing on Cappadocian tablets, Mr. Brown establishes a
connection between the people of Accadia (who probably introduced the
cuneiform style) and the people of Cappadocia. The connection amounts to
this. Twelve hundred years after Homer, the inhabitants of Cappadocia
are said to have called rue 'moly.' At some unknown period,
the Accadians appear to have influenced the art of writing in Cappadocia.
Apparently Mr. Brown thinks it not too rash to infer that the Cappadocian
use of the word 'moly' is not derived from the Greeks, but
from the Accadians. Now in Accadian, according to Mr. Brown, mul
means 'star.' 'Hence ulu or mulu
= μωλυ, the mysterious Homerik counter-charm
to the charms of Kirkê' (p. 60). Mr. Brown's
theory, therefore, is that moly originally meant 'star.'
Circe is the moon, Odysseus is the sun, and 'what watches over
the solar hero at night when exposed to the hostile lunar power, but
the stars?' especially the dog-star.
The truth is, that Homer's moly, whatever plant he meant by
the name, is only one of the magical herbs in which most peoples believe
or have believed. Like the Scottish rowan, or like St. John's
wort, it is potent against evil influences. People have their
own simple reasons for believing in these plants, and have not needed
to bring down their humble, early botany from the clouds and stars.
We have to imagine, on the other hand (if we follow Mr. Brown), that
in some unknown past the Cappadocians turned the Accadian word for a
star into a local name of a plant, that this word reached Homer, that
the supposed old Accadian myth of the star which watches over the solar
hero retained its vitality in Greek, and leaving the star clung to the
herb, that Homer used an 'Akkado-Kappadokian' myth, and
that, many ages after, the Accadian star-name in its perverted sense
of 'rue' survived in Cappadocia. This structure of
argument is based on tablets which even Prof. Sayce cannot read, and
on possibilities about the alliances of tongues concerning which we
'know next to nothing.' A method which leaves on one
side the common, natural, widely-diffused beliefs about the magic virtue
of herbs (beliefs which we have seen at work in Kensington and in Central
Africa), to hunt for moly among stars and undeciphered Kappadokian inscriptions,
seems a dubious method. We have examined it at full length because
it is a specimen of an erudite, but, as we think, a mistaken way in
folklore. M. Halévy's warnings against the shifting
mythical theories based on sciences so new as the lore of Assyria and
'Akkadia' are by no means superfluous. 'Akkadian'
is rapidly become as ready a key to all locks as 'Aryan'
was a few years ago.
Footnotes
Uncharted Knowledge
Wisdom From Previous Realities
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