ASH. | NATURAL HISTORY 15 
[In 1633 five sorts of Apricots were known: ‘“ The common, 
the long and great, the musk, the Barbary, and the early 
Apricock.’’] Fobnson’s edition of Gerard's “Herbal,” p. 1448. 
Ash. 
That body, where against 
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke. 
Corionanus, iv. 5, 112. 
AsH is good for shafts and spears. The leaves thereof 
helpeth against venom, and the juice thereof wrung and 
drunk helpeth best against serpents. And Ash hath so 
great virtue, that serpents come not in the shadow thereof 
in the morning nor at even. And if a serpent be set 
between a fire and Ash-leaves, he will flee into the fire 
sooner than into the leaves. In Greece the leaves thereof 
is poison to beasts, and grieveth not other beasts that chew 
their cud, and grieveth not beasts in Italy. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 62. 
Tue fruit like unto cods is termed in English Ash-keys, 
and of some Kite-keys. It is a wonderful courtesy in 
nature that the Ash should flower before these serpents 
appear, and not cast his leaves before they be gone again. 
Three or four leaves of the Ash-tree taken in wine each 
morning from time to time do make those lean that are 
fat, and keepeth them from feeding which do begin to 
wax fat. Gerard’s ‘* Herbal,” s.v. 
(WueETHER by the power of magic or nature I determine 
not) I have heard it affirmed with great confidence, and _ 
upon experience, that the rupture to which many children 
are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant through a 
wide cleft made in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree, 
through which the child is made to pass; and then carried 
a second time round the Ash, caused to repass the same 
aperture again, that the cleft of the tree suffered to close 
and coalesce, as it will, the rupture of the child, bein 
carefully bound up, will not only abate, but be perfectly 
cured. The white and rotten dotard part composes a 
ground for our gallants’ sweet powder. 
Evelyn's “Sylva,” p. 62 (ed. 1706). 
