In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a
row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down
their sides, manifestly show that, in former times, they have been
cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed
and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked,
were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by
such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity.
As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part,
was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts
coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat
was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but,
where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed,
would prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not
long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of which did not
grow together.
We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their
childhood, were supposed to be healed by this superstitious
ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who
practiced it before their conversion to Christianity.
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