122 THE FOLK-LORE OF PLANTS. [CHAP, 
tree it would probably be cured. “The stem of a 
young Ash being cleft down the middle, and kept 
open by wedges, the afflicted child, in a state of nudity, 
was forced through the opening, the mother standing 
on one side of the tree, and the father on the other. 
This uncomfortable transit having been twice per- 
formed by the astonished and shivering infant, both 
it and the disrupted tree were respectively swathed 
up at the same time; and if the wound in the latter 
healed and the parts coalesced, as was generally the | 
case, a simultaneous cure was supposed to be effected 
in the child.” * 
Then there was what was known as the Shrew-ash 
—but it should be premised that the inoffensive little 
shrew-mouse has the evil reputation of afflicting with 
cramp any cattle it may touch or pass over. To cure 
such cases the good country-folk always had recourse 
to a Shrew-ash, a sprig of which applied to the afflicted 
part would effect a cure! But to turn an ordinary 
Ash into a Shrew-ash required some special prepara- 
tion. “This they managed by boring a deep hole 
in the tree with an auger, into which a poor innocent 
shrew-mouse was thrust alive, with appropriate incan- 
tations. The entrance being then. plugged up, of 
course the wretched mouse shortly died, and the 
tree thenceforward became a wonderful ‘ Shrew-ash,’ 
and, as such, was treated with the greatest vene- 
ration.” 
Our old friend Culpepper tells us of the Persicaria 
or Water-pepper—which he calls by another name— 
that if we put a good handful of it under a horse’s 
* Coleman, ‘‘ Woodlands, Heaths, and Hedges.” 
