5
In this river grows a reed, which is called leucophyllus, or the reed with the white leaf. This reed is found at the dawning of the morning light, at what time the sacrifices are offered to Hecate, at the time when the divinely inspired paean is chanted, at the beginning of the spring; when they who are troubled with jealous heads gather this reed, and strew it in their wives’ chambers to keep them chaste. And the nature of the reed is such, that if any wild extravagant person happens to come rashly in drink into the room where it lies, he presently becomes deprived of his rational thoughts, and immediately confesses whatever he has wickedly done and intended to do. At what time they that are present to hear him lay hold of him, sew him up in a sack, and throw him into a hole called the Mouth of the Wicked, which is round like the mouth of a well. This after thirty days empties the body into the Lake Maeotis, that is full of worms; where of a sudden the body is seized and torn to pieces by several vultures unseen before, nor is it known from whence they come;— as Ctesippus relates in his Second Book of Scythian Relations.
