198 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
crowned with flowers. There is an old superstition 
about these arches of briar hung out along the hedge-. 
row: magical cures of whooping-cough and some 
other diseases of childhood can, it is believed, be 
effected by passing the child at sunrise under the 
briar facing the rising sun. 
This had to be performed by the ‘wise woman,’ 
There was one in every hamlet but a few years ago 
—and indeed here and there an aged woman retains 
something like a reputation for witchcraft still. The 
“wise woman’ conducted the child entrusted to her 
care at the dawn to the hedge, where she knew there 
was a briar growing in such a position that a person 
could creep under it facing the east, and there, as the 
sun rose, passed the child through. 
In the hollow just beneath the ha-ha wall, where 
it is moist, grow tall rushes; and here the great 
dragon-fly darts to and fro so swiftly as to leave the 
impression of a line of green drawn suddenly through 
the air. Though travelling at such speed, he has the 
power of stopping abruptly, and instantly afterwards 
returns upon his path. These handsome insects are 
often placed on mirrors as an ornament in farm- 
houses. The labourers will have it that they sting 
like the hornet ; but this they say also of many other 
harmless creatures, seeming to have a general distrust 
of the insect kind. They will tell you alarming 
stories of terrible sufferings—arms swollen to double 
the natural size, necks inflamed, and so forth—caused 
