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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
58
Again,
a
popular
means
employed
by
witches
of
injuring
their
enemies
was
by
the
briony.
Coles,
in
his
"Art
of
Simpling,"
for
instance,
informs
us
how,
"they
take
likewise
the
roots
of
mandrake,
according
to
some,
or,
as
I
rather
suppose,
the
roots
of
briony,
which
simple
folk
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."
And
Lord
Bacon,
speaking
of
the
mandrake,
says--"Some
plants
there
are,
but
rare,
that
have
a
mossie
or
downy
root,
and
likewise
that
have
a
number
of
threads,
like
beards,
as
mandrakes,
whereof
witches
and
impostours
make
an
ugly
image,
giving
it
the
form
of
a
face
at
the
top
of
the
root,
and
leave
those
strings
to
make
a
broad
beard
down
to
the
foot."
The
witchcraft
literature
of
the
sixteenth
and
seventeenth
centuries
contains
numerous
allusions
to
the
diabolical
practice--a
superstition
immortalised
by
Shakespeare.
The
mandrake,
from
its
supposed
mysterious
character,
was
intimately
associated
with
witches,
and
Ben
Jonson,
in
his
"Masque
of
Queens,"
makes
one
of
the
hags
who
has
been
gathering
this
plant
say,
"I
last
night
lay
all
alone
On
the
ground,
to
hear
the
mandrake
groan;
And
plucked
him
up,
though
he
grew
full
low,
And,
as
I
had
done,
the
cock
did
crow."
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