THE ASH. 



133 



The Romans called it Fraxinus^ a name which 

 naturalists still retain, but the derivation of which 

 is very uncertain. They employed its wood in 

 the manufacture of weapons and many kinds of 

 agricultural implements. In the Teutonic Myth- 

 ology, the Ash holds a conspicuous place. Under 

 the shade of an enormous tree — of which the 

 branches overspread the earth, the top reached to 

 Heaven, and the roots to the infernal regions, — 

 the gods held their court. On the summit was 

 perched an eagle, who watched the course of 

 all earthly affairs, assisted by a squirrel, who em- 

 ployed his time in descending and ascending to 

 examine into, and report upon, what was passing 

 beneath. Pliny gravely informs us that the ser- 

 pent would rather creep into the fire than shelter 

 itself in its branches : and Dioscorides, the 

 physician, states that the juice of the Ash is an 

 antidote against the bite of the same reptile. 



But we need not go back to ages so remote 

 as these for superstitious opinions respecting this 

 tree. Gilbert "White, in his classical history 

 of Selbourne, says : "In a farm-yard, near the 

 middle of this village, stands at this day a row of 

 pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cica- 

 trices down their sides, manifestly show that in 

 former times they have been cleft asunder. These 

 trees, when young and flexible, were severed and 

 held open by wedges, while diseased children, 

 stripped naked, were pushed through the aper- 

 tures, under a persuasion, that by such a process 

 the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. 

 As soon as the operation was over, the tree in the 



* " This," says Evelyn, is an old imposture of Pliny, who either 

 took it upon trust, or else we mistake the tree." 



