THE DEVONSHIRE ASH-TREE CHARM. 
143 
Mr. Halliwell says, in the work already quoted, pp. 299-300, 
" A girl must pluck a leaf from the even-ash, and holding it in her 
hand, say — 
' This even-ash. I hold in my hand, 
The first I meet is my true man.' 
She carries it in her hand a short distance, and if she meets a 
young man, he will be her future husband. If not, she must put 
the leaf in her glove, and say — 
' This even-ash I hold in my glove, 
The first I meet is my true love.' 
She carries it in her glove a short time, with the same intention as 
before ; but if she meets no one, she places the leaf in her bosom, 
saying— 
1 This even-ash I hold in my "bosom, 
The first I meet is my husband.' 
And the first young man she meets after this will infallibly be her 
future partner." 
He adds, " There are a great variety of rhymes relating to the 
even-ash. Another is — 
' If you find even-ash or four-leaved clover, 
You'll see your love afore the day 's over.' " 
"L. M. M.," writing to the Athenceum of November 7th, 1846, 
No. 993, p. 1142, mentions the last of the foregoing couplets, but 
with a slight difference. The following is his version, which he 
says is current in Wiltshire : — 
" An even-ash or a four-leaved clover, 
You'll see your true love before the day's over." 
He adds, " It was told to me in my childhood by my nurse, who 
never, I think, forgot it when we passed by an ash-tree, or through 
a clover-field." 
The Eev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, m.a., in his English Folk-Lore, 
London: 1878, p. 14, speaks of the same lines, slightly modified, 
as being very prevalent in Devonshire. 
Some of the even-ash rhymes, however, are scarcely so senti- 
mental as the foregoing. Thus "P. P.," a correspondent of the 
Athenceum, says in that journal for October 17th, 1846, No. 990, p. 
1068, " A friend in Wiltshire reminds me of some lines regarding 
the ash. It was once the practice, and in some obscure places may be 
