282 
Ash. 
And, as his authority, the poet adds : 
“ For truth hereof, take Pliny’s word,” 
—a thing, however, which few who know the extent of that 
gentleman’s veracity would feel inclined to do. 
Sannazaro says, “ Serpents always avoid the shade of the 
ash ; so that if a fire and a serpent be placed within a circle 
of ash-leaves, the serpent, to avoid the ash, will even run into 
the midst of the fire.” 
In days of yore the wood of this tree was used for spears. 
The lance with which Achilles killed Hector was of ash, by 
which circumstance, Rapin and others considered that the tree 
became ennobled. 
“ The ash for nothing ill,” 
as Spenser says, also furnished Cupid with wood for his arrows, 
before he learnt to use the more fatal cypress. 
Many curious figures are said to have been discovered in 
the wood of the ash. A gentleman in Oxfordshire was said to 
possess a dining-table made of this wood, representing figures 
of men, beasts, and fish; and in Holland, an ash being cleft, 
discovered the forms of a chalice, a priest s alb, his stole, and 
several other pontifical vestments. 
Evelyn mentions that in some parts of England the country 
people split young ashes, and pass children through the open¬ 
ing, in the belief that it will cure their disorder; and the Rev. 
W. Bree, some few years ago related an instance, within his 
personal’knowledge, of the strange superstition having been 
recently practised in Warwickshire. 
Miss Kent speaks of another extraordinary custom that 
rustics have : they bore a hole in an ash-tree, and imprison a 
shrew-mouse in it; a few strokes given with a branch of that 
tree is then deemed a sovereign remedy for cramps and lame¬ 
ness in cattle, which the harmless little animal is ignorantly 
supposed to cause. 
Evelyn says the ash was reputed so sacred in Wales, that 
there was not a churchyard in his time that did not contain 
one, and that on a certain day in the year every person wore 
a cross made of the wood. “ It is reputed, he says, to be 
preservative against fascination and evil spirits, whence, pei- 
* 
