OF SELBORNE. 297 



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 fore- 

 fathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when 

 once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A 

 shrew-ash was made thus 2 : Into the body of the tree 

 a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor de- 

 voted 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 con- 

 secration 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 burn'd it," 



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

 strances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for 

 its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and 

 alleging that it had been 



" Religione patrum multos servata per annos." 



I am, &c. 



3 For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire. 



[Dr. Plot relates that two workmen, on sawing the trunk of a solid 

 oak, cut through the body of " a Hardishrew or Nursrow (as they here 

 call them,) i. e. a field-mouse" and that " the case remains an inexplicable 

 riddle to all those about to this very day. Butme-thinks, to any one that 

 considers the superstitious custom they have in this country of making 

 Nursrow-trees for the cure of unaccountable swellings in their cattle, the 

 thing should not seem strange. For to make any tree, whether oak, ash, 

 or elm, it being indifferent which, a Nursrow-tree, they catch one or more 

 of these mice (which they fancy bite their cattle, and make them swell), 

 and having bored a hole to the centre in the body of the tree, they put 

 the mice in, and then drive a peg in after them of the same wood, where 

 they starving at last, communicate forsooth such a virtue to the tree, that 

 cattle thus swoln being whipped with the boughs of it, presently recover: 

 of which trees they have not so many (though so easily made) but that at 

 some places they go eight or ten miles to procure this remedy." E.T. B.] 



