140 ON THE OLD AND EEMAKKABLE ASII TREES IN SCOTLAND. 



some churcli or religioiis house about this site, of which no record 

 ]iow seems to exist. One of the tallest ash trees Ave have been 

 able to record is growing, and is still quite vigorous, at Miln- 

 Graden, close by the banks of the Tweed, in Berwickshire. It 

 measvn-ed, in September 1878, 121 feet 3 inches in height, with a 

 clear bole of 55 feet, and it girthed, at 1 foot from the ground, 

 15 feet 5 inches, and 12 feet 2| inches at 5 feet. In point of 

 height this tree is only surpassed by one in the tabulated list, 

 which is growing in Bute, on the estate of Mount-Stuart, which 

 is said to have attained a height of 134 feet, with a bole, how- 

 ever, of only 36 feet. 



Having thus reviewed the principal old and remarkable ash 

 trees which we have been able to find in Scotland, as well as 

 noticed and compared the condition at the present day of man}' 

 individual trees previously chronicled by former wTiters, it onh' 

 remains to notice some curious proverbs and superstitions con- 

 nected with this tree in some localities. We have already- 

 referred to its being used for the supposed cure of ruptured 

 children. The well-known popular adage in regard to its folia- 

 tion, when contrasted with that of the oak, as prognosticating a 

 wet or dry summer is familiar to every one. " May your footfall 

 ])e by the root of an ash," is a north country proverb, signifying 

 " May you get a firm footing," and is given as a God-speed to 

 travellers. It is, of course, derived from the property possessed 

 by the ash roots, — which will not live in stagnant boggy land, — 

 of drying and draining the adjacent soil when merely damp, 

 [n the midland counties of England a proverb still exists, 

 that, if there are no seed keys on the ash in any season, 

 there will then be no king in the country within that twelve- 

 month, in allusion, doubtless, to the fact that the ash is never 

 wholly destitute of ke}"s. In some parts of the Highlands, a 

 custom prevailed, at the birtli of a child, for the nurse to put one 

 end of a green ash stick into the fire, and while burning, to 

 gather in a spoon the sap or juice which oozed out at the other 

 end, ami to administer this as the first spoonful of food to the 

 newly born child. What the expected benefits to the child from 

 so curious a custom may have been, it is impossible to say. In 

 Devonshire the yule log took the form of the Ashton faggot, and 

 is still, in some remote hamlets, brought in and burnt with great 

 merriment. It is composed of a bundle of ash sticks bound or 

 hooped round with bands of the same tree, and the number of 

 these last ought to be nine. The rods having been cut a few- 

 days previously, the farm labourers on Christmas Eve sally forth 

 joyously, bind them together, and then, by the aid of one or two 

 horses, drag the faggot, with great rejoicings, to the master's 

 lumse, where it is deposited on the spacious hearth, which serves 

 as the fireplace in old-fashioned kitchens. Fun and jollity then 



