THE DEVONSHIRE ASH-TREE CHARM. 
159 
foregoing conclusion leads naturally and directly to the ques- 
tion : — Was the thing symbolized exclusively Christian, whilst the 
mode of symbolization alone had a pagan basis % To this question 
a tolerably direct and conclusive reply seems to be contained in the 
following statements and quotations : — 
A writer in the Athenceum of October 17th, 1846 (No. 990, 
p. 1068), already quoted (see p. 154 above), says that the passing of 
ricketty children through a split tree " is held by the Brahmins to 
represent a new birth;" and "Ambrose Merton," a name assumed, 
it is said, by Mr. Thorns, for many years editor of Notes and 
Queries (See Popular Romances, &c, by Robert Hunt, f.r.s., 
London, 1871, p. 421), quotes the Anglo-Saxon version of the 
Ganones Edgari, in Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of Eng- 
land, forbidding tree-worshippings and stone-worshippings and that 
devil's craft whereby children are drawn through the earth ; ' and 
he closes an interesting article on the subject, in the Athenceum of 
September 12th, 1846 (No. 985, p. 932), with a quotation from 
JSlfric's Homily on the Passion of St. Bartholomew the Apostle 
(vol. i. p. 475, of the Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church), edited 
for the JElfric Society, by Mr. Thorpe : — "It is not allowed to any 
Christian man to fetch his health from any stone, nor from any 
tree, unless it be the holy sign of the Rood, nor from any place, 
unless it be the holy house of God." 
With these passages before me I cannot resist the belief that the 
doctrine of Regeneration was held by, at least, some pagan nations 
independently of Christian teaching or influence. 
P.S. Since the foregoing Paper was read, Mr. P. F. S. Amery, 
of Druid, near Ashburton, writing me on 3rd April, 1879, was so 
good as to enclose the following statement respecting another recent 
case of the Ash-tree Charm in Devonshire : — 
" The following case came under my notice. The son of a small 
farmer residing at Ashburton was found shortly after his birth to be 
suffering from a rupture, which gave much pain. For some months 
various remedies were tried without success; and in 1872, when 
the child was about a year old, recourse was had to the Ash tree. 
"A small sapling 'maiden Ash,' about 2 5 inches in diameter, 
growing in a thick wood, was selected. By the aid of a hatchet 
and hammer a cleft two feet long was made in it about four feet 
