194 SUPERSTITIONS. 



At the south comer of the Plestor, or area, near the church, 

 there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old, grotesque, 

 hollow, pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with 

 no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now, a shrew-ash is an 

 ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs 

 of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast 

 suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part 

 affected : for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful 

 and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, 

 be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is 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 forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at 

 hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue 

 for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:* Into the body 

 of the tree, a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor 

 devoted 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 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 bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, 

 urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 

 Religione patrum multos servata per ann os. 



LETTER LXXI. 



TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, February 7, 1776. 



DEAR SIR, In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, 

 trees are perfect alembics : and no one that has not attended 

 to such matters, can imagine how much water one tree will 

 distil in a night's time, by condensing the vapour, which 



colour ; the Bretons imagining that the bees would forsake their dwellings 

 if they were not made to participate in the rejoicings of their owners : in 

 like manner, they are all put into mournings when a death occurs in the 

 family. " 



Innumerable illustrations of similar superstitions might be quoted ; 

 but we conceive the above sufficient for our purpose. ED. 



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



