18 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
Bsb. 
Let me twine 
Mine arms about that body, where against 
My grained Ash an hundred times hath broke, 
And starr’d the moon with splinters.— Coriolanus , iv. 5, 112. 
Warwickshire is more celebrated for its Oaks and Elms 
than for its Ash trees. Yet considering how common a tree 
the Ash is, and in what high estimation it was held by our 
ancestors, it is strange that it is only mentioned in this one 
passage. Spenser spoke of it as “ the Ash for nothing ill; ” 
it was “the husbandman’s tree,” from which he got the wood 
for his agricultural implements; and there was connected with 
it a great amount of mystic folk-lore, which was carried to its 
extreme limit in the Yggdrasil, or legendary Ash of Scandi¬ 
navia, which was almost looked upon as the parent of Creation : 
a full account of this may be found in Mallet’s “ Northern 
Antiquities ” and other works on Scandinavia. It is an English 
native tree, 1 and it adds much to the beauty of any English 
landscape in which it is allowed to grow. It gives its name to 
many places, especially in the South, as Ashdown, Ashstead, 
Ashford, &c.; but to see it in its full beauty it must be seen in 
our northern counties, though the finest in England is said to 
be at Woburn. 
“ The Oak, the Ash, and the Ivy tree, 
O, they flourished best at liame, in the north countrie.” 
Old Ballad. 
In the dales of Yorkshire it is especially beautiful, and any 
one who sees the fine old trees in Wharfdale and Wensleydale 
will confess that, though it may not have the rich luxuriance 
of the Oaks and Elms of the southern and midland counties, 
yet it has a grace and beauty that are all its own, so that we 
scarcely wonder that Gilpin called it “the Venus of the 
woods.” 
1 It is called in the “ Promptorium Parvulorum ” “Esche,” and the 
seed vessels “ Esche key.” 
