176 The New Forest ■ its History and its Scenery. 



contrasts with the wild spirit of those of the North, founded 

 as the hitter so often are on the border forays and raids of 

 former times. None which I have collected are direct enough 

 in their bearing on the New Forest to warrant quotation, and I 

 must content myself with this general expression. * 



To pass on to other matters, let us notice some of the 

 superstitions of the New Forest. No one is now so super- 

 stitious, because no one is so ignorant as the West-Saxon. One 

 of the commonest remedies for consumption in the Forest is 

 the " lungs of oak," a lichen {Sticta pulmonaria) which grows 

 rather plentifully on the oak trees; and it is no unfrequent 

 occurrence for a poor person to ask at a chemist's shop for 

 a " pennyworth of lungs of oak." So, too, for weak eyes, 

 " brighten," another lichen, is recommended. I do not know, 

 however, that we must find so much fault izi this matter, as 

 the lichens -were not very long ago favourite prescriptions with 

 even medical men. 



Again, another remedy for various diseases used to be the 

 scrapings from Sir John Chydioke's alabaster figure, in the 

 Priory Church of Christclmrch, which has, in consequence, been 

 sadly injured. A specific, however, for consumption is still to 

 kill a jay and place it in the embers till calcined, wdien it is 



" 'I'lie tr.ost popular songs which I have noticed in the Forest and on its 

 borders are the fan)ous satire, " When Joan's ale was new," which differs 

 in many important points from J\lr. Bell's printed version : " King Arthur 

 had llirce sons :" '' There was an old miller of Devonshire," which also 

 differs from Mr IJell's copy ; and 



" There were three men came from the north, 

 To fight tlie victory ;" 



made famous by Burns' additions and improvements; but which, from 

 various expressions, seems to have been, first of all, a West-Country song, 

 sung at diflerent wakes and fairs, ])art of the unwritten poetry of the nation. 



176 



