THE ERD SHREW, OR SHREW-MOUSE. 435 
fortunate circumstance that the larger animals are not so vindictively pugnacious as the 
moles and the Shrews ; for it would be a very hard case if we were unable to put two 
horses or two cows in the same field without the certainty of immediate fight, and the 
probability that one of the combatants would lose its life in the struggle. Such, however, 
is the case with the Shrews ; for if two of these little quadrupeds be confined in the same 
hox, they are sure to fight to the death, and the consummation of the combat is, generally, 
that the vanquished foe is eaten by the victor. 
However great may be the damage which the bite of such tiny teeth may inflict upon 
each other, yet the bite of a Shrew is so insignificant as to make hardly any impress even 
on the delicate skin of the human hand. Popular prejudice, however, here steps in, and 
attributes to the bite of the Shrew such venomous properties that in many districts of 
England the viper is less feared than the little harmless Shrew. The very touch of the 
Shrew’s foot is considered as a certain herald of evil, and animals or men which had been 
“Shrew-struck ” were supposed to labour under a malady which was incurable except by 
a rather singular remedy, which partakes somewhat of the homceopathic principle, that 
“similia similibus curantur.” 
The curative power which alone could heal the Shrew-stroke lay in the branches of a 
Shrew-ash, or an ash-tree which had been imbued with the shrewish nature by a very 
simple process. A living Shrew was captured and carried to the ash-tree which was 
intended to receive the healing virtues. An auger-hole was made into the trunk, the poor 
Shrew was introduced into the cavity, and the auger-hole closed by a wooden plug. 
Fortunately for the wretched little prisoner, the entire want of air would almost imme- 
diately cause its death. But were its little life to linger for ever so long a time in the 
ash-trunk, its incarceration would still have taken place, for where superstition raises its 
eruel head, humanity is banished. 
The popular ideas respecting the Shrew’s bite, which once reigned even over the 
scientific world, and are still in full force throughout many portions of the rural districts, 
may be gathered from the following extract from a curious old zoological author named 
Topsel, in his “ History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents,” published in London in the 
year A.D. 1658, p. 406 :— 
“Tt is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame, but, being touched, it biteth 
deep, and poysoneth deadly. It beareth a cruel minde, desiring to hurt anything, neither 
is there any creature that it loveth, or it loveth him, because it is feared of all. The 
cats, as we have said, do hunt it, and kill it, but they eat not them, for if they do, they 
consume away and die. They annoy vines, and are seldom taken, except in cold; they 
frequent ox-dung, and in the winter time repair to houses, gardens, and stables, where 
they are taken and killed. 
If they fall into a cart-road, they die, and cannot get forth again, as Marcellus, Nicander, 
and Pliny affirm. And the reason is given by Philes, for being in the same, it is so 
amazed, and trembleth, as if it were in bands. And for this cause some of the ancients 
have prescribed the earth of a cart-road to be laid to the biting of this mouse as a remedy 
thereof. They go very slowly ; they are fraudulent, and take their prey by deceit. Many 
times they gnaw the oxés hoofs in the stable. 
They love the rotten flesh of ravens; and therefore in France, when they have killed 
a raven, they keep it till it stinketh, and then cast it in the places where the Shrew-mice 
haunt, whereunto they gather in so great a number, that you may kill them with shovels. 
The Egyptians, upon the former opinion of holiness, do bury them when they die. And 
thus much for the description of this beast. The succeeding discouyse toucheth the 
medecines arising out of this beast; also the cure of her venomous bitings. 
The Shrew, which by falling by chance into a cart-rode or track, doth die upon the same, 
being burned, and afterwards beaten, or dissolved into dust, and mingled with eoose-grease, 
being rubbed or anointed upon those which are troubled with the swelling coming by the 
cause of some inflammation, doth bring into them a wonderful and most admirable cure 
and remedy. The Shrew being slain or killed, hanging so that neither then nor after- 
wards she may touch the ground, doth help those which are grieved and pained in their 
FF2 
