The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

io6 THE EVIL EYE chap.
with the oak. With them the ash, Igdrasil, the tree
of Hfe, was especially sacred. We find the survival
of this amongst ourselves in the passing of a child
afflicted with congenital hernia through a growing
ash,^''' always an ash, with certain formulae connected
with sunrise and Sunday, by which a new-born life
is typified,^'^ Several instances of this cure are
recorded in the Gentleman s Magazine for 1804, p.
909. The writer of these says the rupture returns
whenever the tree is cut down. Other beliefs are
still entertained respecting the ash in various parts of
England. The following evidently relates to Warwickshire
: "Tom was in a state of as blank un-
imaginativeness concerning the cause and tendency
of his sufferings, as if he had been an innocent shrewmouse
imprisoned in the split trunk of an ash-tree
in order to cure lameness in cattle.""^
The old west country custom of burning an
ashen faggot on Christmas Eve points to the
sacredness of the ash. From it, an old Norse
tradition says that man was first formed. It is
believed that idols were made from it : "He planteth
an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. . . . And the
residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven
image" (Isaiah xliv. 14-17). Hence probably was
developed our Christmas custom, which is no less
i^f* This tree was evidently highly prized by the ancients who had the oak
as well; for Pliny {Nat. Hist. xvi. 24; Bohn, iii. 365) says that the leaves
of the ash yield an extract which is a specific for the bites of serpents ; that
no serpent will ever lie in the shadow of an ash, either morning or evening,
and that they keep the greatest possible distance from it. He states positively
that if a serpent and a lighted fire are placed within a circle formed of the
leaves, it will rather throw itself into the fire than encounter the ash leaves.
1^1 Referred to a7tte, p. 69. Newspapers and magazines in plenty testify
to the prevalence of this well-known custom. See Gentlemaii's Mag. June
1804; also Cultns Arl>or!u?t, Phallic Series, privately printed 1S90, p. 67.
!'- George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, p. 126. See also Brand, iii. 290.