Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/366

334 fessor was a very early riser, often wandering out over the park before sunrise. I wrote to him about the tree in 1888. In his reply, and in subsequent conversations, he told me that either the year he came to live in the park or the year after, he could not say which, he first encountered early in the morning a young mother with a sick child accompanied by "an old dame," "a shrew-mother," or, as he generally called her, a "witch-mother." They were going straight for the tree; but when they saw him, they turned off in quite another direction till they supposed he was out of sight. He, however, struck by their sudden avoidance of him, watched them from a distance, saw them return to the tree, where they remained some little time, as if busily engaged with it; then they went away. He was too far off to hear anything said, but heard the sound of voices in unison on other occasions. He heard afterwards from the keeper of Sheen Gate named Stacey (long since dead) that mothers with "bewitched" infants, or with young children afflicted with whooping cough, decline, and other ailments, often came, sometimes from long distances, to this tree. It was necessary that they should arrive before sunrise. There is a right of way across the park from Sheen Gate to Kingston Gate; the park, therefore, was open at all hours. On some occasions on their way to the tree doggerel verses would be sung or muttered by one or both women according to the shrew-mother's directions. One line has been preserved in Sir Richard Owen's letter of 1888:

The bar, generally called by Sir Richard Owen the "witch-bar," has been alluded to already. The important part of the ritual was performed at the tree. The "shrew-mother" took the child from its mother, and giving directions to the parent according to the malady under treatment, passed the child slowly under and over the bar nine times, muttering charms or singing verses as the case