ASH. 83 



not cast its leaves until these reptiles were 

 gone. 



Dioscorides the celebrated physician to 

 Antony and Cleopatra, assures us, that the 

 leaves of the ash applied to the wound, or 

 the juice of them being mixed with wine and 

 drunk, was a cure for the venomous bite of 

 vipers. 



We may still trace in this country the re- 

 mains of a superstitious veneration towards 

 this tree. In the south-east part of the king- 

 dom, the country people split young ash trees, 

 and make their distempered children pass 

 through the chasm in hopes of a cure. They 

 have also a superstitious custom of boring a 

 hole in an ash, and fastening in a shrew 

 mouse ; a few strokes with a branch of this 

 tree is then accounted a sovereign remedy 

 against cramps and lameness in cattle, which 

 are ignorantly supposed to proceed from this 

 harmless animal. 



Lightfoot says, that in many parts of the 

 Highlands of Scotland, at the birth of a child, 

 the nurse or midwife puts one end of a great 

 stick of this tree into the fire, and while it is 

 burning, receives into a spoon the sap or juice 

 which oozes out at the other end, and ad- 

 ministers this as the first spoonful of liquor 

 to the new-born babe. 



g 2 



