etty to look at; but the little
feathered wanderers eat them with great relish when the snows of winter
make bird-food scarce and the bright-red berries gleam out most
invitingly. In some parts of Europe the berries are dried and ground
into flour. The rowan, or roan, tree is the English name of the mountain
ash, and in some parts of Great Britain it is called _witchen_, because
of its supposed power against witches and evil spirits and all their
spells. In old times branches of it were hung about houses and stables
and cow-sheds, for it was thought that

"'witches have no power
Where there is roan-tree wood.'"

"But that isn't true, is it?" asked Edith.

"No, dear, not true of either the witches or the wood. But ignorant
people believe a great many foolish things, and the leaves and twigs of
the ash tree were thought to have peculiar virtue. In some places it was
once the practice to pluck an ash-leaf in every case where the leaflets
were of even number, and to say,

"'Even ash, I do thee pluck,
Hoping thus to meet good luck;
If no luck I get from thee,
Better far be on the tree.'"

"It sounds like what children say on finding a four-leafed clover," said
Clara.

"It is on the same principle," was the reply, "for clover-leaves grow
naturally in threes and ash-leaves in sevens. Both rhymes are equally
silly where luck is concerned, and those who believe God's words--that
even 'the hairs of our head are all numbered'--will have no faith in
'luck.' In old times the ash was believed to perform wonderful cures of
various kinds, and in remote parts of England a little mouse called the
shrew-mouse bore a very bad character. If a horse or cow had pains in
its limbs, they were said to be caused by a shrew-mouse running over it.
Our forefathers provided themselves with what they called a shrew-ash,
in order to meet the case. The shrew-ash was nothing more than an ash
tree in the trunk of which a hole had been bored and a poor little
shrew-mouse put in, with many charms and incantations happily long since
forgotten."

"And couldn't the poor little mouse get out again?" asked Edith.

"I am afraid not, dear; and we can only rejoice that we did not live in
those dark days. Among other beliefs in its virtues, the leaves and
wood of the ash were regarded throughout Northern Europe as a protection
from all manner of snakes, and in harvest-time children were suspended
in their cradles fro