L E T T E R XXVIII.
TO TH E -SAME .
S E A R S IR , S e l b o r n e , J a n . 8, 1 7 7 6 .
I t is the hardeft thing in the world to fhake off fuperftitious prejudices
: they are fucked in as it were with our mother’s milk;
and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fafteft hold
and make the mofl lafting imprellions, become fo interwoven into
our very conftitutions, that the ftrongeft good fenfe is required to
difengage ourfelves from them. No wonder therefore that the
lower people retain them their whole lives through, fince their
minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore
not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occafion.
Such a preamble feems to be neceflary before we enter on the
fuperftitions of this diftridt, left we fhould be fufpefted of exaggeration
in a recital of practices too grofs for this enlightened
age.
But the people of Tritig, in Hertfordjhire, would .do well to remember
, that no longer ago than the year 1751, and within twenty
miles of the capital, they ferzed on two fuperannuated wretches,
crazed with age, and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a fufpicion
ofwitchcraft; and, by trying experiments, drowned them in a horfe-
pond.
In a farm-yard near the middle of this village ftands, at this day,
a row of pollard-afhes, which, by the feams and long cicatrices
down their fides, manifeftly lhew that, in former times, they have
been cleft afunder. Thefe “trees, when young and flexible, were
fevered and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, ftripped
O F S E L B O R N E . »93
ped naked, were pufhed through the apertures, under a perfuafion
that, by fuch a procefs, the poor babes would be cured of their
infirmity. As foon as the operation was over, the tree, in the fuf-
fering part, was plaftered with loam, and .earefully fwathed up.
If the parts coalefced and foldered together, as ufually fell out,
where the feat was performed with any adroitnefs at all, the party
was cured; but, where the cleft continued to gape, the operation,
it was fuppofed, would prove ineffeaual. Having occafion to
enlarge my garden not long fince, I cut down two or three fuch
trees, one of which did not grow together.
We have feveral perfons now diving in the village, who, in
their childhood, were fuppofed to be healed by this fuperftitious
ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon anceftors, who
pra&ifed it before their-converfion to Chriftianit-y.
At the fouth corner of the Plejior, or area, near the church, there
flood, about twenty-years ago, a very old grotefque hollow pol-
lard-alh, which for ages had been looked on with no fmall veneration
as a Jhrew-aJh. Now a fhrew-afh is an afh whole twigs or
branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately
relieve the pains which a beaft fuffers from the running of a
jhrew-moufe over the part affefted : for it is fuppofed that a Ihrew-
moufe is of fo baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it
creeps over a beaft, be it horfe, cow, or fheep, the fuffering animal
is afflicted with cruel anguilh, and threatened with the lofs of
the ufe of the limb. Againft this accident, to which they were
continually liable, our provident fore-fathers always kept a fhrew-
afb at .hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain it’s virtue
for ever. A fhrew-alh was made thus m :~ In to the body of the
For a linular praftice, Ht^Phl'.sStaffonlJbire.
D d 2 •tree