By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 323 



but with the cunning man or woman, who trade upon the simplicity 

 of the people, no parley should be held : but their nefarious traffic 

 should be exposed, and destroyed at all cost. In my own immediate 

 neighbourhood I am glad to think that such credulity has generally 

 ceased, partly because when a gross case of such pretended cunning 

 occurred there, some twelve or fourteen years ago, and some time 

 afterwards came under my notice, special pains were taken to expose 

 it ; but still more perhaps because I positively assured the cunning 

 woman that if any other instance of pretended advice on her part 

 occurred, I would certainly prosecute her for obtaining money under 

 false pretences : and this is a course of action which I earnestly 

 recommend to all who have the opportunity of suppressing this 

 miserable deception. 



One of the most thoroughly accepted Wiltshire superstitions, is 

 the passing the body of a crippled child through a cleft ash tree. 

 I recollect, when I was a boy, this charm was tried by a labourer 

 on my father's estate. This man first selected a well-grown healthy 

 young ash ; and then with many rites and ceremonies, and at early 

 dawn, split the tree where the stem forked into branches, passed the 

 body of the suffering infant through the cleft, and then carefully 

 bound up the wounded tree, not without a large lump of moistened 

 clay : the cure of the child depending altogether on the recovery of 

 the tree; for should the tree perish under the somewhat severe 

 treatment it had undergone, the child must infallibly perish too, 

 whereas if the tree survived, the cure of the child was certain. I 

 have reason to believe that this superstitious practice still exists in 

 some parts of this county, probably the remnant of a very ancient 

 custom, dating back to the peroid when in the Teutonic Mythology 

 the ash was sacred to the gods.^ 



While speaking of the ash-tree, I may mention another very 

 current tradition, which, if not now, at all events very lately, re- 

 ceived implicit credence amongst the Wiltshire labourers : and that 

 was, that if a hole be bored in an ash-tree, and a live shrew mouse 

 (sorex tetragonunis) be e^nclosed in the hole, the branches of that 



' See Rev. C. A. John's Forest Trees, vol. i., page 133, also Evelyn's Sylyaj 

 vol. i., page, 151, and "White's Selborne, page 187. 



