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,
That living mortals hearing them run mad.'
Frequent allusions to this superstition are to be found in the old
poets, although it is held by some that the effects claimed for
decoctions of the mandrake really refer to those of the nightshade. This
confusion has certainly arisen at times, but the most general idea
concerning the mandrake was that it was a stimulant rather than a
narcotic. It is true that Shakespeare regarded mandragora as an opiate,
for he makes Cleopatra to exclaim:
'Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.'
And, again, when in Othello he makes Iago say:
'Nor poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Can ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.'
But, on the other hand, we find Apuleius--himself, by the way, not
unsuspected of magical arts--writing that when the root of the mandrake
is steeped in wine it produces vehement intoxication. The same idea is
reflected in Mrs. Browning's Dead Pan:
'In what revels are ye sunken
In old Ethiopia?
Have the Pygmies made you drunken,
Bathing in mandragora,
Your divine pale lips that shiver
Like the lotus in the river?'
And there can be little doubt that the mysterious 'Lhasis,' referred to
by Sir William Davenant[5]--a word whose etymology is so obscure--is
nothing else than the mandrake or mandragora; if so, then we see that
the plant was valued for its exciting and stimulating effects rather
than as an opiate.
Many commentators and most dictionaries dispose of Reuben's mandrakes as
something altogether different from the plant now known by the name; but
there is really no warrant for such a conclusion. The _Mandragora
officinalis_ is quite common in Celicia, Syria, and elsewhere in the
East, and is easily identifiable with the root of Baaras, which Josephus
describes in the Wars of the Jews. This root, he says, is in colour like
to that of flame, and towards the evening it sends out a certain ray
like lightning. It is not easily to be pulled, it will not yield
quietly, and it is certain death to anyone who dares pull it, unless he
hangs it with the head downwards. As to the uses of the root, Josephus
continues: 'After all his pains in getting it, it is only valuable on
account of one virtue it hath: that if it only be brought to sick
persons, it quickly drives away those called Demons, which are no other
than the spirits of the wicked, which enter into men that are alive and
kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them'; and the root
was esteemed a useful stimulant, although in Baaras, at any rate, it
seems to have lost its reputation as a love-philtre. It is noteworthy
that Josephus also tells how Solomon had great skill in enchantments,
and cast out devils by means of this root--an accomplishment he is said
to have learned from some of the numerous foreign ladies with whom he
surrounded himself.
Now, it is interesting to turn from the old Jewish historian to the old
English herbalist, Gerarde, who in 1597 wrote in his Herball pointing
out how, by 'the corruption of time and the errour of some,' mandragora
has been mistaken for what he calls Circaea, or Enchanter's Nightshade.
But of the mandrake, or mandragoras, Gerarde says: 'There hath been many
ridiculous tales brought up of this plant, whether of old wives, or some
runagate surgeons, or physickemongers, I know not; but sure some one or
more that sought to make themselves famous or skillful above others were
the first brochers of the errour'--that the root resembles a man. 'They
add further,' he says, 'that it is never, or very seldome, to be found
growing naturally, but under a gallowes, where the matter that hath
fallen from the dead body hath given it the shape of a man, and the
matter of a woman the substance of a female plant, with many other such
doltish dreames. The fable further affirms that he who would take up a
plant thereof ... he should surely die in short space after.'
This is clearly Josephus's 'root of Baaras' over again. Gerarde further
holds it to be the identical mandragoras of the Greeks, and called
Circaea because it was used by Circe for love-potions and enchantments.
If this be so, then what was the 'moly' given to Odysseus by Hermes
wherewith to counteract the charms of Circe? Was it a totally different
plant, or was it merely the same applied on the homoeopathic principle?
Mr. Andrew Lang thinks they cannot be the same, because the 'moly' is
described by Homer as having a black root and a white flower, while the
mandragoras is described by Pliny as having a yellow flower and white,
fleshy roots. But we know that Homer is somewhat confusing in the matter
of colours, and it is possible that various shades of the purplish
flower of the true mandrake might appear to one observer as white, and
to another as yellow. Upon the whole, the probability is that the two
names meant one and the same plant, for the characteristics are too
peculiar to be alike possessed by different species. If the moly were
not mandragoras there is nothing else known to modern botany that it
could be, unless it were rue, with which some scholars have sought to
identify it, but not very successfully.
The learned author of Pseudosia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors, at any
rate, was clearly of opinion that moly and mandragoras were one and the
same. He quotes also from Pliny that the ancient way of pulling the root
was to get on the windward side of the plant, and with a sword to
describe three circles about it, whilst the operator kept his face
turned to the west. The dangers attending the plucking of mandrakes are
shrewdly disposed of by Sir Thomas Browne with the remark that it is
'derogatory unto the Providence of God ... to impose so destructive a
quality on any plant ... whose parts are usefull unto many.' The same
author mentions the superstition that the mandrake grows under gallows,
fructified by the decaying bodies of criminals, that it grows both male
and female, and that it shrieks upon eradication. This last idea he
derides as 'false below confute, arising perhaps from a small and
stridulous noise which, being firmly rooted, it maketh upon divulsion of
parts.' 'A slender foundation,' he remarks, 'for such a vast conception;
for such a noise we sometimes observe in other plants--in parsnips,
liquorish, eringium, flags, and others.'
The belief that the root of the mandrake resembles the human figure is
characterized by the writer last quoted, as a 'conceit not to be made
out by ordinary inspection, or any other eyes than such as regarding the
clouds behold them in shapes conformable to pre-apprehensions.' It is
traceable to the bifurcation of the root; a formation, however, which
is frequently found 'in carrots, parsnips, briony, and many others.'
There is no other importance, therefore, to be attached to 'the epithet
of Pythagoras, who calls it anthropomorphon, and that of Columella, who
terms it semihomo;' nor to Albertus, 'when he affirmed that mandrakes
represent mankind with the distinction of either sex.' The roots, which
were commonly sold in various parts of Europe 'unto ignorant people,
handsomely made out the shape of man or woman. But these are not
productions of nature but contrivances of art, as divers have noted....
This is vain and fabulous, which ignorant 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 the Goddess of Love) 'in
spring, and on a Monday, in a grave, and then sprinkled it with milk in
which three field-mice had been drowned. In a month it became more
humanlike than ever. Then he placed it in an oven with vervain, wrapped
it afterwards in a dead man's shroud, and so long as he kept it he never
failed in luck at games or work.'
Then we learn from the same author that a German horse-dealer, of
Augsburg, once lost a horse, and being poor, wandered in despair to an
inn. There some men gave him a mandrake, and on his return home he found
a bag of ducats on the table. His wife, however, did not like the
business, and persuaded the man to return to give back the root to those
from whom he got it. But he could not find the men again, and soon after
the house was burned down, and both horse-dealer and wife perished.
The only suggestion from this story is that the mandrake was supposed to
bring 'devil's luck,' although, if so, it is difficult to understand why
the _erdmanns_ were so carefully preserved from generation to
generation. One German writer, Rist, says that he has seen one more than
a century old, which had been kept in a coffin, on which was a cloth
bearing a picture of a thief on the gallows and a mandrake growing
underneath.
Coles, who wrote The Art of Simpling, in 1656, says the witches use the
mandrake-roots, 'according to some, or, as I rather suppose, the roots
of briony, which simple people take for the true mandrake, and make
thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they
intend to exercise their witchcraft.' But their professions must at
times have been even larger, for it is on record that a witch was
executed near Orleans, in France, about 1605, who was charged with
having kept a living mandrake-fiend, having the form of a female ape!
So much for the mandrake, of which, however, a good deal more might be
said. But what has been said serves to establish that it was identical
with the mandragora, and with the mandragoras of the Greeks; that it was
probably also the briony; that superstitions have attached to it in all
countries and from time immemorial, which ascribed to it occult virtues;
that the powers it exercised varied a good deal according to locality
and time, but that two main conceptions have almost universally
prevailed, viz., that it was a stimulant, and a potent instrument in
affairs of the heart.
What, then, is the Soma, or Homa, of the Hindu mythology--the ambrosia
of the Indian gods? It has been the subject of much discussion and some
difference among comparative mythologists. Soma was the chief deity
among the ancient Hindus--the author of life, the giver of health, the
protector of the weak, and the guide to immortality. Once he took upon
himself the form of man, but was slain by men and braised in a mortar.
The similarity with the Christian legend is remarkable, and the method
of death should be borne in mind. After his death, Soma rose in flame to
heaven, 'to be the benefactor of the world and the mediator between God
and man.'
One of the articles of faith with the Hindus, therefore, is that they
must hold communion with Soma, and they are taught thus to pray to him:
'O Soma! thou art the strength of our heroes and the death of our
enemies, invincible in war! Fulfil our vows in battle, fight for us!
None can resist thee; give us superiority! O Soma immortal! May we drink
to thee and be immortal like thee!' Mr. Baring-Gould says that the whole
legend of Soma is but the allegorical history of the plant _Sarcostemma
viminalis_, which is associated with passionate love 'because of the
intoxicating liquor which is derived from its juice. It is regarded as a
godsend. The way in which it is prepared is by crushing it in a mortar;
the juice is then thrown on the sacrificial flame and so rises to
heaven.' The same writer tells us that a similar worship prevailed among
the Iranians, who called the juice Homa, but they did not ferment it,
and although they ascribed to it divine attributes, they did not make
Homa a supreme deity. But both with them and with the Hindus, 'the
partaking of the juice was regarded as a sacramental act, by virtue of
which the receiver was embued with a portion of the divine nature.'
Another writer, the author of Bible Folklore, says that the 'old Soma
was the same as the Persian Homa, a brilliant god, who gives sons to
heroes, and husbands to maidens. The juice of the plant, pounded in an
iron mortar, is greenish in colour, and is strained through a cloth and
mixed with the sap of a pomegranate branch; the yellow juice is then
strained through a vessel with nine holes. Among the Parsees it is
drunk, not as by the Brahmins in large quantities by sixteen priests,
but in small quantities by the two chief priests, and is thus not
intoxicating.'
The symbol is confused with the deity, and 'Soma is at once the
life-giving spring of the juice 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.