192 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 by-standers, who interceded in vain for it's preservation, 

 urging it's power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 

 "Religione patrum multos servata per annos"*. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776. 

 DEAR SIR, 

 IN heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are per- 



* [The superstitions mentioned in the text have long ceased to exist j 

 and the legitimate results of a more general and rational education have 

 been in no respect more manifest than in the removal of such credulity 

 from the minds of the poorer classes. But when I first became acquainted 

 with Selbome, between 30 and 40 years ago, there were still many 

 remains of ancient superstitious absurdities devoutly retained as a part of 

 the popular creed. I remember a worthy and even kindly old man 

 cutting oft* the feet of a mole, and hanging them in a little bag round the 

 neck of a child, with the object of curing the "king's evil," as it was 

 called, and then letting the poor victim go, with the full conviction that 

 as the maimed animal gradually died the child would be, pari passii, 

 cured. The necessity of keeping perfectly clean and bright any instru- 

 ment by which man or beast had been wounded, in order to avoid in- 

 flammation in the wounded part, and to ensure a cure, was as carefully 

 attended to as it is represented in Wilkie's well-known admirable picture 

 of "The Out Finger." When the late Mr. Tindall came to the vicarage 

 of Empshott, about 30 years ago, he was assured by his housekeeper that 

 the " fairies danced every night on Wolmer Common." Many equally 

 amusing instances of Selbornian bygone superstitions might be enume- 

 rated. T. B.] 



