NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 207 



immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the 

 running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected ; for it is supposed 

 that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that 

 wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the 

 suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened 

 with the loss of the use of the limb.* Against this accident, to 

 which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers 

 always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, 

 would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus : 

 Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, 

 and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged 

 in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. 

 As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer 

 understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known 

 to subsist in the manor, or hundred. 

 As to that on the Plestor 



"The late Vicar stubb'd and burnt it," 



when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the 

 bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its 

 power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 



' Rellgione patrum multos servata per annos.' 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XXIX. 



SELBORNE, Feb. ytk, 1776. 



DEAR SIR, In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, 

 trees are perfect alembics; and no one that has not attended to 

 such matters can imagine how much water one tree will distil in a 

 night's time, by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the 



* " When a horse in the fields happened to be suddenly seized with anything 

 like a numbness in his legs, he was immediately judged by the old persons to 

 be either planet-struck, or shrew- struck. The mode of cure which they pre- 

 scribed, and which they considered in all cases infallible, was to drag the 

 animal through a piece of bramble that grew at both ends." BINGLEY. 



