Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/330

304 no longer interested in them. It is unnecessary to say the sticks split last year have not yet had time to grow together. Mulley had not performed the rite for twenty-five years, when he did a boy named Stevens. The boy's father recommended the cure in the present cases."

Mr. Lingwood afterwards kindly took the trouble not only to sketch one of the young trees as it stood (see Plate II.), but also to cut two of them for the Society, and exhibited them at the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich in September last, when he handed them over to the President. Mr. F. T. Elworthy, who was present, has been good enough to furnish some notes of a similar case in Somersetshire, including the following extract from the Bath and Wells Diocesan Magazine, December, 1886, p. 178:

"—A remarkable instance of the extraordinary superstition which still prevails in the rural districts of Somerset has lately come to light at Athelney. It appears that a child was recently born in that neighbourhood with a physical ailment, and the neighbours persuaded the parents to resort to a very novel method of charming away the complaint. A sapling ash was split down the centre, and wedges were inserted so as to afford an opening sufficient for the child's body to pass through without touching either side of the tree. This having been done, the child was undressed, and, with its face held heavenward, it was drawn through the sapling in strict accordance with the superstition. Afterwards the child was dressed, and simultaneously the tree was bound up. The belief of those who took part in this strange ceremony is, that if the tree grows the child will grow out of its bodily ills. The affair took place at the rising of the sun on a recent Sunday morning in the presence of the child's parents, several of the neighbours, and the parish police-constable."

Mr. Elworthy, who had not then seen the foregoing account, wrote, on hearing of the case, to the Spectator. His letter, which appeared on the 5th February, 1887, was as follows:

"In this parish, some months ago, the wife of a highly respectable farmer presented him with twins, one of which was born with hernia. As soon as convenient, 'upon a Sunday morning before sunrise, the farmer and his wife, with several neighbours and servants, proceeded to a wood on his farm. They then with wedges