94 
came up to him, and informed him that that tree was 
a security against magic, and that no wizard could 
come within its shade. 
The mountain ash was much esteemed by the Druids, 
in proof of which it is found more frequently in the 
neighbourhood of druidical circles than any other tree. 
We should scarcely have expected this from the cha¬ 
racter it has since borne. Its connection (in what way 
we know not) with their mystic rites, renders it but an 
inappropriate appanage of a Christian burial ground, 
yet in Wales it is almost as commonly found in that 
sacred enclosure as the yew; and in by-gone times, on 
one particular day in the year, the Welsh peasantry 
wore a cross made of its wood. 
These superstitious notions and observances are 
fading fast away, except in very remote places; and it 
is most desirable they should do so, for we would not 
have Reason surrender herself hoodwinked to Cre¬ 
dulity. Yet the imaginative mind will, at times, have 
its own regrets that the dale, the mountain, and the 
forest, should thus become stripped of their legendary 
lore, and will enter into the feelings which prompted 
the poet to ask somewhat reproachfully, — 
