The truth is, that Homer's moly, whatever plant he meant by the name, is only one of the magical herbs in which most peoples believe or have believed. Like the Scottish rowan, or like St. John's wort, it is potent against evil influences. People have their own simple reasons for believing in these plants, and have not needed to bring down their humble, early botany from the clouds and stars. We have to imagine, on the other hand (if we follow Mr. Brown), that in some unknown past the Cappadocians turned the Accadian word for a star into a local name of a plant, that this word reached Homer, that the supposed old Accadian myth of the star which watches over the solar hero retained its vitality in Greek, and leaving the star clung to the herb, that Homer used an 'Akkado-Kappadokian' myth, and that, many ages after, the Accadian star-name in its perverted sense of 'rue' survived in Cappadocia. This structure of argument is based on tablets which even Prof. Sayce cannot read, and on possibilities about the alliances of tongues concerning which we 'know next to nothing.' A method which leaves on one side the common, natural, widely-diffused beliefs about the magic virtue of herbs (beliefs which we have seen at work in Kensington and in Central Africa), to hunt for moly among stars and undeciphered Kappadokian inscriptions, seems a dubious method. We have examined it at full length because it is a specimen of an erudite, but, as we think, a mistaken way in folklore. M. Halévy's warnings against the shifting mythical theories based on sciences so new as the lore of Assyria and 'Akkadia' are by no means superfluous. 'Akkadian' is rapidly become as ready a key to all locks as 'Aryan' was a few years ago.[171] FOOTNOTES: [157] Grimm, _D. M._, Engl. transl., p. 1202. [158] _Tom Sawyer_, p. 87. [159] _Rep._, vi. 488. Dem., 10, 6. [160] _Journal Anthrop. Inst._, Feb., 1881. [161] Gregor, _Folklore of North-east Counties_, p. 40. [162] _Wars of Jews_, vii. 6, 3. [163] _Var. Hist._, 14, 27. [164] Max Müller, _Selected Essays_, ii. 622. [165] There is no end to Aryan parallels of savage practices. The famous soma of the Veda is apparently now used like the Hottentot roots. By the Zoroastrians 'it is used at incantations and sacrifices, and thrown into the fire.' See Mr. Hootum Schindler, _Academy_, Jan. 31, 1885, p. 83. [166] _Myth of Kirkê_, p. 80. [167] Turner's _Samoa_. [168] Josephus, _loc. cit._ For this, and many other references, I am indebted to Schwartz's _Prähistorisch-anthropologische Studien_. In most magic herbs the learned author recognises thunder and lightning--a theory no less plausible than Mr. Brown's. [169] Lib. xxviii. [170] Schoolcraft, v.