"Pear tree, I complain to thee
Three worms sting me."
The henbane, too, according to a German belief, is said to attract rain,
and in olden times was thought to produce sterility. Some critics have
suggested that it is the plant referred to in "Macbeth" by Banquo (Act i.
sc. 3):--
"Have we eaten of the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?"Although others think it is the hemlock. Anyhow, the henbane has
long been in repute as a plant possessed of mysterious attributes, and
Douce quotes the subjoined passage:--"Henbane, called insana, mad, for
the use thereof is perillous, for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth
madness, or slowe lykeness of sleepe." In days gone by, when the
mandrake was an object of superstitious veneration by reason of its
supernatural character, the Germans made little idols of its root, which
were consulted as oracles. Indeed, so much credence was attached to
these images, that they were manufactured in very large quantities for
exportation to various other countries, and realised good prices.
Oftentimes substituted for the mandrake was the briony, which
designing people sold at a good profit. Gerarde informs us, "How the
idle drones, that have little or nothing to do but eat and drink, have
bestowed some of their time in carving the roots of briony, forming them
to the shape of men and women, which falsifying practice hath
confirmed the error amongst the simple and unlearned people, who have
taken them upon their report to be the true mandrakes." Oftentimes, too,
the root of the briony was trained to grow into certain eccentric shapes,
which were used as charms. Speaking of the mandrake, we may note
that in France it was regarded as a species of elf, and nicknamed main de
gloire; in connection with which Saint-Palaye describes a curious
superstition:-- "When I asked a peasant one day why he was gathering
mistletoe, he told me that at the foot of the oaks on which the mistletoe
grew he had a mandrake; that this mandrake had lived in the earth from
whence the mistletoe sprang; that he was a kind of mole; that he who
found him was obliged to give him food--bread, meat, and some other
nourishment; and that he who had once given him food was obliged to
give it every day, and in the same quantity, without which the mandrake
would assuredly cause the forgetful one to die. Two of his countrymen,
whom he named to me, had, he said, lost their lives; but, as a
recompense, this main de gloire returned on the morrow double what he
had received the previous day. If one paid cash for the main de gloire's