THE DEVONSHIRE ASH-TREE CHARM. 
137 
case remains an inexplicable riddle to all thereabout to this very 
day. But me-thinks to any one that considers the superstitious 
Custom they have in this Country of making Nursrow-trees for the 
cure of unaccountable swellings in their Cattle, the thing should 
not seem strange. For to make any tree, whether Oak, Ash, or Elm 
(it being indifferent which) a Nursrow-tree, they catch one or more 
of these mice (which they fancy bite their Cattle, and make them 
swell,) and having bored a hole to the center in the body of the 
tree, they put the mice in, and then drive a pegg in after them of 
the same wood, where they starving at last, communicat forsooth 
such a virtue to the tree, that Cattle thus swoln being whipt with 
the boughs of it, presently recover : of which trees they have not 
so many neither (though so easily made,) but that at some places 
they goe 8 or 10 miles to procure this remedy. 
u Now though it may be improbable enough that the swellings of 
their Cattle arises [sic] from the bites of these mice . . . yet what 
hinders (since 'tis apprehended that these mice do it), but one may 
well imagin, that some person not farr distant might according to 
the superstitious custom of the Country make this Oak (unknown 
either to the owner or workmen) a Nursrow-tree but a little before 
it came to be cut down and sawn asunder, by pegging in these mice. 
Just as the Irish serve the Connough worm (a sort of Cater piller) 
which they think poysons their Cattle, though it have no poyson 
in't, which they shut up in a hole thus bored in a tree, where when 
the worm is dead, the bark § leaves of that tree bruised and steeped 
in water, and given to the Cattle they apprehend thus poysoned, 
ever after gives them an infallible cure." 
2. Ash Trees and Serpents: — Pliny, in his Natural History 
(Philemon Holland's Translation, ed. 1601), the Sixteenth Booke, 
chap. xiii. p. 466, says of the Ash, " The leaues of this tree, 
according to the Greeks, are hurtfull, venomous and deadly to 
Horses, Mules, and such labouring garrons; but otherwise to beasts 
that chew the cud, they be harmlesse. Howbeit, in Italy if horses, 
&c, do brouse of the leaves, they take no harme thereby. More- 
ouer, they be excellent good, and nothing so soueraigne can be 
found against the poison of serpents, if the juice thereof be pressed 
forth and giuen to drinke ; or to cure old vlcers, if they be applied 
and laid thereto in manner of a Cataplasme : nay, so forcible is 
their vertue, that a serpent dareth not come neare vnto the shadow 
