THE DEVONSHIRE ASH-TREE CHARM. 
155 
thin and flat, fixed in the ground, on its edge, and in the middle 
has a large hole one foot two inches diameter, whence it is called 
the Men an Tol (in Cornish the holed Stone) I apprehend 
that it served for Libations, served to initiate, and dedicate children 
to the Offices of Bock-Worship, by drawing them through this hole, 
and also to purify the Victim before it was sacrificed ; and consider- 
ing the many lucrative juggles of the Druids ... it is not wholly 
improbable that some miraculous Restorations of health, might be 
promised to the people for themselves and children, upon proper 
pecuniary gratifications, provided that, at a certain season of the 
Moon, and whilst a Priest officiated at one of the Stones adjoining, 
with prayers adapted to the occasion, they would draw their infirm 
children through this hole When I was last at this Monu- 
ment, in the year 1749, a very intelligent farmer of the neighbour- 
hood assured me, that he had known many persons who had crept 
through this holed Stone for pains in their back and limbs ; and 
that fanciful parents, at certain times of the year, do customarily 
draw their young Children through, in order to cure them of the 
Rickets." (pp. 177-8.) 
In short, we appear to be approximating the idea that the essence of 
the charm is in the act of passing through, and that it is of compara- 
tively little importance through ivhat the passage is made. "This form 
of operation," says Mr. John Bruce, in a letter in the Athenceum of 
September 5th, 1846 (No. 984, pp. 908-9), "was of almost uni- 
versal use. Children offered to Moloch, ' horrid king ! . . . passed 
through fire to his grim idol.' The passing through a cleft or 
aperture in a rock is a medical superstition which has been found 
in many countries. It is mentioned in the Asiatic Researches as 
common in the East Indies. Borlase commemorates it as practised 
with perforations of Druidical stones in Cornwall. In Scotland, 
the same superstition assumed another shape. Sick persons were 
passed through a garland of green woodbine, or a ' heap of green 
yarn,' which was afterwards cut in nine pieces and burnt, or buried 
in the earth." 
Nevertheless, the connection of the Ash with the charm is 
remarkably conspicuous in, at least, the English usage. There 
were, however, differences of ritual in different localities : In some 
the child wore its ordinary dress, in others it was stripped quite 
