" Moore gives this warning: "The phantom shapesoh, touch them not That appal the maiden's sight, Look in the fleshy mandrake's stem,

By virtue of a similar association of ideas, for instance, the gin-seng was said by the Chinese and North American Indians to possess certain virtues which were deduced from the shape of the root, supposed to resemble the human body a plant with which may be compared our mandrake.

In Silesia, Thuringia, and Bohemia the mandrake is, in addition to its many mystic properties, connected with the idea of hidden treasures.

The mandrake, as a mystic plant, was extensively sold for medicinal purposes, and in Kent may be occasionally found kept to cure barrenness; and it may be remembered that La Fontaine's fable, La Mandragore, turns upon its supposed power of producing children.

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.

Oftentimes substituted for the mandrake was the briony, which designing people sold at a good profit.

Many other equally curious stories are told of the mandrake, a plant which, for its mystic qualities, has perhaps been unsurpassed; and it is no wonder that it was a dread object of superstitious fear, for Moore, speaking of its appearance, says: "Such rank and deadly lustre dwells, As in those hellish fires that light The mandrake's charnel leaves at night.

Many other equally curious stories are told of the mandrake, a plant which, for its mystic qualities, has perhaps been unsurpassed; and it is no wonder that it was a dread object of superstitious fear, for Moore, speaking of its appearance, says: "Such rank and deadly lustre dwells, As in those hellish fires that light The mandrake's charnel leaves at night.

But these mandrake fables are mostly of foreign extraction and of very ancient date.

Dr. Daubeny, in his "Roman Husbandry," has given a curious drawing from the Vienna MS. of Dioscorides in the fifth century, representing the Goddess of Discovery presenting to Dioscorides the root of the mandrake (of thoroughly human shape), which she has just pulled up, while the unfortunate dog which had been employed for that purpose is depicted in the agonies of death.

I don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could.

Why, there wasn't a nook or a corner that some fibre had not worked its way into; and when I gave the last wrench, each of them seemed to shriek like a mandrake, as it broke its hold and came away.

2. of Mandrake.

Mandrake apples, Lemnius lib. herb.

Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom.

If there was anything which people were certain about in the early part of the seventeenth century, it was that the mandrake only grew under a gallows, where the dead body of a man had fallen to pieces, and that when it was dug up it gave a great shriek, which was fatal to the nearest living thing.

The May-apple, or Mandrake, a wild fruit, is a favourite with our young folks; it grows on a single-steemed plant, usually one foot high, and is about the size of a plum, but with seeds, and in taste resembling a highly flavoured pear.

Sarah Mandrake.

R558031. Mandrake the magician and the flame pearls.

Mandrake the magician, by Lee Falk & Phil Davis.

King Features Syndicate, Inc. (PWH); 1Aug62; R299451. Mandrake the magician.

SEE McManus, George. Mandrake the magician and the midnight monster.

the Mandrake, or the Boxe?

[There] the sad Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull!

The mandrake very frequently has a forked root, which may be fancied to resemble thighs and legs.