Again, as respects shrew-mice, Mr. White says, “At the south corner of the plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash, whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, are immediately to relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected: for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand; which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:—Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that on the plestor, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it, when he was waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been
‘Religione patrum multos servata per annos.’”
Mr. Ellis, in a note on this practice of enclosing field-mice, cites a letter to Mr. Brand, dated May 9, 1806, from Robert Studley Vidal, Esq. of Cornborough, near Biddeford, a gentleman to whom Mr. Brand was much indebted for information on the local customs of Devonshire. Mr. Vidal says:—“An usage of the superstitious kind has just come under my notice, and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will shortly describe, though I rather think it is not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour of mine, on examining his sheep the other day, found that one of them had entirely lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing it, I expressed an opinion that the animal must have received a blow across the back, or some other sort of violence which had injured the spinal marrow, and thus rendered it paralytic: but I was soon given to understand, that my remarks only served to prove how little I knew of country affairs, for that the affection of the sheep was nothing uncommon, and that the cause of it was well known; namely, a mouse having crept over its back. I could not but smile at the idea; which my instructor considering as a mark of incredulity, he proceeded very gravely to inform me, that I should be convinced of the truth of what he said by the means which he would use to restore the animal; and which were never known to fail. He accordingly despatched his people here and there in quest of a field-mouse; and having procured one, he told me that he should carry it to a particular tree at some distance, and, enclosing it within a hollow in the trunk, leave it there to perish. He further informed me, that he should bring back some of the branches of the tree with him, for the purpose of their being drawn now and then across the sheep’s back; and concluded by assuring me, with a very scientific look, that I should soon be convinced of the efficacy of this process; for that, as soon as the poor devoted mouse had yielded up his life a prey to famine, the sheep would be restored to its former strength and vigour. I can, however, state, with certainty, that the sheep was not at all benefited by this mysterious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I find, is of the sort called witch-elm, or witch-hazel.”
TREES
Poetically and Nationally regarded.
A gentleman, who, on a tour in 1790, visited the burial-place of Edmond Waller, in the church-yard of Beaconsfield, describes the poet’s splendid tomb as enclosed, or cradled, with spiked iron palisadoes, inserted into a great old ash tree, under which his head reposes. “This umbrageous tree overshadows the whole mausoleum. As the pagan deities had each their favourite tree—Jupiter, the oak; Apollo, the laurel; Venus, the myrtle; Minerva, the olive; &c.—so poets and literary men have imitated them herein; and all lovers of solitude are, like the Lady Grace of Sir John Vanbrugh, fond of a cool retreat from the noon-day’s sultry heat under a great tree.”[381]
A modern author, whose works are expressive of beauty and feeling, and from whom an elegant extract on “Gardens” in a former page has been derived, adverts to the important use which the poets have made of trees by way of illustration. He says—
Homer frequently embellishes his subjects with references to them; and no passage in the Iliad is more beautiful, than the one where, in imitation of Musæus, he compares the falling of leaves and shrubs to the fall and renovation of great and ancient families.—Illustrations of this sort are frequent in the sacred writings.—“I am exalted like a cedar in Libanus,” says the author of Ecclesiastes, “and as a cypress tree upon the mountain of Hermon. I was exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho; as a fair olive in a pleasant field, and grew up as a plane tree by the water; as a turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of honour and grace; as a vine brought I forth pleasant savour, and my flowers are the fruits of honour and victory.”—In the Psalms, in a fine vein of allegory, the vine tree is made to represent the people of Israel: “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cut out the heathen, and planted it. Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.”
In Ossian, how beautiful is the following passage of Malvina’s lamentation for Oscar:—“I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me; but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low; the spring returned with its showers, but no green leaf of mine arose.” Again, where old and weary, blind and almost destitute of friends, he compares himself to a tree that is withered and decayed:—“But Ossian is a tree that is withered; its branches are blasted and bare; no green leaf covers its boughs:—from its trunk no young shoot is seen to spring; the breeze whistles in its grey moss; the blast shakes its head of age; the storm will soon overturn it, and strew all its dry branches with thee, Oh Dermid, and with all the rest of the mighty dead, in the green winding vale of Cona.”
That traveller esteemed himself happy, who first carried into Palestine the rose of Jericho from the plains of Arabia; and many of the Roman nobility were gratified, in a high degree, with having transplanted exotic plants and trees into the orchards of Italy. Pompey introduced the ebony on the day of his triumph over Mithridates; Vespasian transplanted the balm of Syria, and Lucullus the Pontian cherry. Auger de Busbeck brought the lilac from Constantinople; Hercules introduced the orange into Spain; Verton the mulberry into England:—and so great is the love of nations for particular trees, that a traveller never fails to celebrate those by which his native province is distinguished. Thus, the native of Hampshire prides himself upon his oaks; the Burgundian boasts of his vines, and the Herefordshire farmer of his apples. Normandy is proud of her pears; Provence of her olives; and Dauphiné of her mulberries; while the Maltese are in love with their own orange trees. Norway and Sweden celebrate their pines; Syria her palms; and since they have few other trees of which they can boast, Lincoln celebrates her alders, and Cambridge her willows! The Paphians were proud of their myrtles, the Lesbians of their vines; Rhodes loudly proclaimed the superior charms of her rose trees; Idumea of her balsams; Media of her citrons, and India of her ebony. The Druses boast of their mulberries; Gaza of her dates and pomegranates; Switzerland of her lime trees; Bairout of her figs and bananas; Damascus of her plums; Inchonnaugan of its birch, and Inchnolaig of its yews. The inhabitants of Jamaica never cease to praise the beauty of their manchenillas; while those of Tobasco are as vain of their cocoas.—The natives of Madeira, whose spring and autumn reign together, take pride in their cedars and citrons; those of Antigua of their tamarinds, while they esteem their mammee sappota to be equal to any oak in Europe, and their mangos to be superior to any tree in America. Equally partial are the inhabitants of the Plains of Tahta to their peculiar species of fan palm; and those of Kous to their odoriferous orchards. The Hispaniolans, with the highest degree of pride, challenge any one of the trees of Europe or Asia to equal the height of their cabbage trees—towering to an altitude of two hundred and seventy feet:—Even the people of the Bay of Honduras have imagination sufficient to conceive their logwood to be superior to any trees in the world; while the Huron savages inquire of Europeans, whether they have any thing to compare with their immense cedar trees.[382]