THE DEVONSHIRE ASH-TREE CHARM. 
135 
Popular Superstitions, By Francis Grose, Esq., f.r. and A.S.S., 1811, 
contains the following statement : — " If a tree of any kind is split 
— aDd weak, ricketty, or ruptured children drawn through it, and 
afterwards the tree is bound together so as to make it unite — as the 
tree heals, and grows together, so will the child acquire strength. 
Sir John Cullum, who saw this operation twice performed, thus 
describes it : ' For this purpose a young ash was each time selected, 
and split longitudinally about five feet : the fissure was kept open 
by my gardener; whilst the friend of the child, having first 
stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, always head 
foremost. As soon as the operation was performed, the wounded 
tree was bound up with a packthread ; and, as the bark healed, the 
child was to recover. The first of the young patients was to be 
cured of the rickets, the second of a rupture ! p. 119. 
The quotation from Sir John Cullum, was taken, no doubt, 
from his History of Hawstead, that work being named by Mr 
Grose, in his Preface, as one of " the books chiefly consulted." 
11. General Statement : — 
Mr. John Evelyn, in his Silva : or, A Discourse of Forest Trees, 
with Notes by A. Hunter, m.d., f.r.s.l. and e., 4th ed., 1812, vol. i. 
p. 151, says, "I have heard it affirmed with great confidence, and 
upon- experience, that the rupture to which many children are 
obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant through a wide cleft 
made in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree ; it is then carried 
a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same aper- 
ture as before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is 
supposed to heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces." 
On this passage the Editor, Dr. A. Hunter, offers the following 
Note : " The curing a ruptured child, by passing its body through 
a cleft made in the bole of a young Ash-tree, has no foundation in 
reason or philosophy." 
The Doctor is no doubt correct. ^Nevertheless, the subject should 
scarcely be thus summarily dismissed. It may be worth enquiring 
whether the belief the curing is better, or more deeply, founded 
than the curing itself ; and, as a preliminary step, we may notice 
other facts connected with Ash Trees. 
III. Sundry other Beliefs and Practices connected with 
Ash Trees. 
