TREE MYTHS. 43 



remedies were more often than not of a cruel 

 nature. In this case a growing ash, usually of 

 large dimensions, was sought out, and a hole 

 bored into the trunk. This done, some old hag 

 would mumble an incantation, and the poor 

 little Shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, after 

 which the hole was securely plastered over with 

 clay. From that time the tree was treated with 

 o-reat veneration, and became a " Shrew Ash." 

 For now the parish was armed against the mouse, 

 and when any creature of the field was afflicted, 

 it had but to be touched with a twig of such 

 tree, and it became whole immediately. There 

 is scarcely a county in England which has not 

 a number of these trees showing their deep 

 scars — if, indeed, the practice itself has yet 

 died out. 



For " making butter to come " probably 

 every pretty milkmaid has a different device. 

 But the commonest of all is to have inserted 

 in the side of the churn a bit of wych-hazel, 

 or wych-elm, though why, nobody seems to 

 know. The magical properties of this tree, it 

 has been suggested, are owing to the mere 

 coincidence between the names " wych " and 

 " witch." The wood, too, of. the Rowan tree, or 



