In the many curious tales related of the mystic henbane may be quoted one noticed by Gerarde, who says:  “The root boiled with vinegar, and the same holden hot in the mouth, easeth the pain of the teeth.  The seed is used by mountebank tooth-drawers, which run about the country, to cause worms to come forth of the teeth, by burning it in a chafing-dish of coles, the party holding his mouth over the fume thereof; but some crafty companions, to gain money, convey small lute-strings into the water, persuading the patient that those small creepers came out of his mouth or other parts which he intended to cure.”  Shakespeare, it may be remembered, alludes to this superstition in “Much Ado About Nothing” (Act iii. sc. 2), where Leonato reproaches Don Pedro for sighing for the toothache, which he adds “is but a tumour or a worm.”  The notion is still current in Germany, where the following incantation is employed:—­

  “Pear tree, I complain to thee
  Three worms sting me.”

The henbane, too, according to a German belief, is said to attract rain, and in olden times was thought to produce sterility.  Some critics have suggested that it is the plant referred to in “Macbeth” by Banquo (Act i. sc. 3):—­

  “Have we eaten of the insane root
  That takes the reason prisoner?”

Although others think it is the hemlock.  Anyhow, the henbane has long been in repute as a plant possessed of mysterious attributes, and Douce quotes the subjoined passage:—­“Henbane, called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous, for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madness, or slowe lykeness of sleepe.”  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.  Indeed, so much credence was attached to these images, that they were manufactured in very large quantities for exportation to various other countries, and realised good prices.  Oftentimes substituted for the mandrake was the briony, which designing people sold at a good profit.  Gerarde informs us, “How the idle drones, that have little or nothing to do but eat and drink, have bestowed some of their time in carving the roots of briony, forming them to the shape of men and women, which falsifying practice hath confirmed the error amongst the simple and unlearned people, who have taken them upon their report to be the true mandrakes.”  Oftentimes, too, the root of the briony was trained to grow into certain eccentric shapes, which were used as charms.  Speaking of the mandrake, we may note that in France it was regarded as a species of elf, and nicknamed main de gloire; in connection with which Saint-Palaye describes a curious superstition:—­ “When I asked a peasant one day why he was gathering mistletoe, he told me that at the foot of the oaks on which the mistletoe grew he had a mandrake; that this mandrake had lived in the earth from whence the mistletoe sprang;