Ii8 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



in it (as among us the yew) ; so, on a certain 

 day in the year, everybody religiously wears a 

 cross made of the wood; and the tree is by 

 some authors called Fraxinus Cambro-Britan- 

 nica, reputed to be a preservative against 

 fascinations and evil spirits; whence, perhaps, 

 we call it witchen, the boughs being stuck 

 about the house or the wood used for walking 

 staves ". So we end our story of the trees in 

 nature with one that links Christianity with the 

 days of tree- worship. 



The mountain ash, it should be said, only 

 gets its name from the similarity of its leafage 

 to that of the true ash. It is a graceful tree. 

 In autumn its berries, so good for ale and beer, 

 show from a considerable distance. I recollect 

 wondering once — it was in Wales, near to an 

 old Welsh stronghold — what a mass of bright 

 red colour could be among the trees at the edge 

 of a wood, and found on going nearer that it 

 was a mountain ash with a plentiful crop of fruit. 



Can we do better, reader, in quitting the 

 woodland, than to drink a health to the trees 

 in imaginary rowan -berry ale, and each of us to 

 bring away an imaginary spray of the tree to 

 ward off the evil eye and all other uncanny ills ? 



