~Used for Charms.~]
Mr. Brand mentions, as a popular superstition, that if a tree of any
kind is split--and weak, rickety, or ruptured children drawn through it,
and afterwards the tree is bound, so as to make it unite, as the tree
heals and grows together, so will the child acquire strength.
Sir John Cullum, who saw this operation twice performed, thus describes
it:--“For this purpose a young _ash_ was each time selected, and split
longitudinally, about five feet: the fissure was kept wide open by my
gardener; whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him
naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. As soon as
the operation was performed, the wounded tree was bound up with a
packthread; and, as the bark healed, the child was to recover. The first
of the young patients was to be cured of the rickets, the second of a
rupture.” This is a very ancient and extensive piece of superstition.
In the Gentleman’s Magazine, for October, 1804, is an engraving of an
ash tree, then growing by the side of Shirley-street, (the road leading
from Hockley House to Birmingham,) at the edge of Shirley-heath, in the
parish of Solihull, Warwickshire. It is stated that this tree is “close
to the cottage of Henry Rowe, whose infant son, Thomas Rowe, was drawn
through the trunk or body of it in the year 1791, to cure him of a
rupture, the tree being then split open for the purpose of passing the
child through it.” The writer proceeds to say, “The boy is now thirteen
years and six months old: I have this day, June 10, 1804, seen the ash
tree and Thomas Rowe, as well as his father, Henry Rowe, from whom I
have received the above account; and he superstitiously believes that
his son Thomas was cured of the rupture, by being drawn through the
cleft in the said ash tree, and by nothing else.”
Another writer concerning the same tree says, “The upper part of a gap
formed by the chisel has closed, but the lower remains open. [As
represented in the plate, from whence the engraving at the head of this
article is taken.] The tree is healthy and flourishing. Thomas
Chillingworth, son of the owner of an adjoining farm, now about 34, was,
when an infant of a year old, passed through a similar tree, now
perfectly sound, which he preserves with so much care that he will not
suffer a single branch to be touched, for it is believed the life of the
patient depends on the life of the tree; and that the moment it is cut
down, be the patient ever so distant, the rupture returns, and a
mortification ensues, and terminates in death. Rowe’s son was passed
through the present tree in 1792, at the age of one or two. It is not,
however, uncommon for persons to survive for a time the felling of the
tree. In one case the rupture returned suddenly, and mortification
followed. These trees are left to close of themselves, or are closed
with nails. The wood-cutters very frequently meet with the latter. One
felled on Bunnan’s farm was found full of nails. This belief is so
prevalent in this part of the country, that instances of trees that have
been employed in the cure are very common. The like notions obtain
credit in some parts of Essex.”
The same writer proceeds to observe a superstition “concerning the power
of ash trees to repel other maladies or evils, such as _Shrew-mice_; the
stopping one of which animals alive into a hole bored in an ash is
imagined an infallible preventive of their ravages in lands.”
On this there are some particulars in point related by the Rev. Gilbert
White, in his “Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,” a parish
near Alton, in Hampshire. “In a farm-yard near the middle of this
village stands, at this day, a row of pollard-_ashes_, which, by the
seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in
former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and
flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children,
stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion
that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their
infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering
part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts
coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was
performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but where the
cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove
ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not long since, I cut
down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together. We
have several persons now living in the village, who, in their childhood,
were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down
perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their
conversion to Christianity.”
Again, as respects _shrew-mice_, Mr. White says, “At the south corner of
the plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years
ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-_ash_, which for ages had been
looked on with no small veneration as a _shrew_-ash. Now a _shrew_-ash
is an ash, whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of
cattle, are immediately to relieve the pains which a beast suffers from
the running of a _shrew-mouse_ over the part affected: for it is
supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature,
that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the
suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with
the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they
were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a
_shrew_-ash at hand; which, when once medicated, would maintain its
virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:--Into the body of the tree a
deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was
thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint
incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such
a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end,
and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that
on the plestor, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it, when he was
waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, who
interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy,
and alleging that it had been
‘Religione patrum multos servata per annos.’”
Mr. Ellis, in a note on this practice of enclosing field-mice, cites a
letter to Mr. Brand, dated May 9, 1806, from Robert Studley Vidal, Esq.
of Cornborough, near Biddeford, a gentleman to whom Mr. Brand was much
indebted for information on the local customs of Devonshire. Mr. Vidal
says:--“An usage of the superstitious kind has just come under my
notice, and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will shortly describe,
though I rather think it is not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour of
mine, on examining his sheep the other day, found that one of them had
entirely lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing it, I expressed an
opinion that the animal must have received a blow across the back, or
some other sort of violence which had injured the spinal marrow, and
thus rendered it paralytic: but I was soon given to understand, that my
remarks only served to prove how little I knew of country affairs, for
that the affection of the sheep was nothing uncommon, and that the cause
of it was well known; namely, a mouse having crept over its back. I
could not but smile at the idea; which my instructor considering as a
mark of incredulity, he proceeded very gravely to inform me, that I
should be convinced of the truth of what he said by the means which he
would use to restore the animal; and which were never known to fail. He
accordingly despatched his people here and there in quest of a
field-mouse; and having procured one, he told me that he should carry it
to a particular tree at some distance, and, enclosing it within a
hollow in the trunk, leave it there to perish. He further informed me,
that he should bring back some of the branches of the tree with him, for
the purpose of their being drawn now and then across the sheep’s back;
and concluded by assuring me, with a very scientific look, that I should
soon be convinced of the efficacy of this process; for that, as soon as
the poor devoted mouse had yielded up his life a prey to famine, the
sheep would be restored to its former strength and vigour. I can,
however, state, with certainty, that the sheep was not at all benefited
by this mysterious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I find, is of the
sort called witch-elm, or witch-hazel.”
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