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.’ [{148}] 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 [{151}] ‘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. [{152a}] 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. [{152b}] These passages prove that the classical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women as the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed Pliny [{152c}] describes a magical manner of defending the crops from blight, by aid of women, which is actually practised in America by the Red Men. [{152d}]