24 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



the tree is then considered a sovereign remedy for cramps 

 and lameness in cattle, which are ignorantly imagined 

 to be caused by that harmless little creature. 



Lightfoot says that, in the Highlands of Scotland, at 

 the birth of an infant, the nurse takes a green stick of 

 Ash, one end of which she puts into the fire, and, while 

 it is burning, receives in a spoon the sap that oozes from 

 the other, which she administers to the child as its first 

 food. 



Ash- wood is sometimes curiously veined, and is then 

 highly valued by the cabinet-makers, who give it the 

 name of green ebony. " The woodman who lights upon 

 it," says Evelyn, " may make what money he will of it."" 

 Many persons have told strange stories of the curious 

 figures to be found in Ash-wood. It has been said, that 

 in the house of a gentleman in Oxfordshire, a dining- 

 table, made of an old Ash, represented many figures of 

 men, beasts, and fish ; and that in Holland, an Ash, 

 being cleft, discovered, in the several slivers, the forms of 

 a chalice, a priesfs albe, his stole, and several other pon- 

 tifical vestments. 



Fancy may play endless vagaries in this way, as it does 

 in a burning fire, or in the ever-changing clouds ; twenty 

 different observers may form twenty different ideas of the 

 same object in such speculations; although it may re- 

 quire the aid of a little courtly acquiescence, for one 

 person, at the same minute, to see in the same object a 

 camel, a weasel, and a whale. 



Ash-trees do not usually grow very large ; but there 

 have been many instances of enormous growth among 

 them. Miller mentions several : we will notice a few of 

 the more remarkable. 



" Near Kenncty church, in the King's County, is an 



