Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/333

Rh split a young growing ash-tree, opening the split wide enough to permit the afflicted child to pass through. This was done three times with due solemnity, and the tree was restored to its previous condition, barring the split, which was carefully bound up with a hayband. The belief is, that if the sides of the tree unite and grow together, the child will be cured. In this case, curiosity has removed the hayband, thereby, it is said, preventing the tree from uniting; but what is the present condition of the child I have been unable to learn, because the parents have recently left the neighbourhood. I can, however, testify that the ash-tree is now standing unhealed, and with a rent in its stem seven or eight feet long. The belief in this cure for congenital hernia is an old and well-known one; but that it should be still practised soberly and solemnly, not by poor ignorant labourers, but by well-to-do, fairly educated people, will perhaps surprise not a few.

About four years later Mr. Elworthy procured the tree to be dug up by the roots and deposited in the County Museum in Taunton Castle. He writes under date 25th September, 1895:

"One of the men who actually split this tree and assisted at the function is now in the service of a neighbour. The mother of the child is well known to me, and is sister of a farmer who is now one of my own tenants. I made some further inquiries of the keeper, and give his own words. Twas pon a Zunday, you know, Zur, an' avore daylight' (i.e.'' sunrise). 'He was a-split proper east and west. Th' ead' (head) 'o' un was a-put drough fust.' 'Was it done more than once?' 'O' ees, he was a-draed vore an' back.' 'How many times?' 'O! he was a-put drough un dree times.' 'Was his head put through first each time?' 'Well, I baint sa-af 'bout that; I count he was, but I can ax Sam Davis, he help do'd it.' My informant ended confidentially and of his own knowledge: 'The cheel's ever so much better vor't; I count is gwam to make a hard boy arter all.'

"I consider the three times analogous to the three in baptism, while the whole business is manifestly a survival of sun-worship, combined with a re-generation (See Evil Eye, pp. 69-70, 106)."

Through Mr. Elworthy's good offices, and by the help of Mr. W. Bidgood, Curator of the Museum, I obtained a photograph (reproduced here, Plate III.) of the tree in question, as well as of a model prepared under the direction of Dr. F. H. Mead, and now also in the Museum, showing the manner in which the ash is