142 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



if an adder be encompassed round with Ash tree leaves she 

 will sooner run through the fire than through the leaves." 

 He then proceeds to bring matters to a climax by declaring 

 " the contrary to which is the truth, as both mine eyes are 

 witnesses." As both his eyes agreed to pronounce Pliny's 

 statement erroneous he had no choice but to believe 

 them. " Three or four " leaves of the ash tree," advises 

 Gerard, " taken in wine each morning from time to 

 time, doe make those leane that are fat, and keepeth them 

 from feeding which do begin to wax " ; but Dioscorides 

 declares that a decoction made from ash-shavings is a 

 deadly poison. 



By the early northern races the ash was regarded with 

 great reverence. The great ash Ydrasil, of which the 

 branches extended over heaven was the canopy of the 

 gods, and in Scandinavian theology and myth the first 

 created man was formed of ash-wood. To enter, however, 

 upon the mythology, superstition, and folk-lore that has 

 gathered around the ash would, if at all adequately done, 

 mean, not a paragraph, but a volume. 



ROWAN (PVRUS Aucuparia) 



The Rowan or Mountain Ash, the subject of our twenty- 

 first illustration, must not be at all associated with the real 

 ash. The name is unfortunate, and was only bestowed 

 upon it because of a certain similarity of form in the leaves 

 of the two trees. The rowan is really a close relative of 

 the hawthorn and apple, as its botanical name, Pyrus 

 Aucuparia, clearly indicates. This specific name Aucuparia 

 was bestowed on it because it has long been the custom 



