One of the most remarkable of the many superstitions inculcated by these ignorant and designing Witches and quacks, was the notion that diseases could be transferred from human beings to trees. Gilbert White has recorded that at Selborne there stood, in his time, a row of Pollard-Ashes which, when young and flexible, had been severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a belief that their infirmity would be thereby cured. Children were also passed through cleft trees, to cast out all witchcraft, or to neutralise its baleful effects, and to protect them from the influence of Witches; and sometimes they were passed through the branches of a Maple, in order that they might be long-lived. Sick sheep were made to go through the cleft of a young Oak, with a view of transferring their diseases to the spirit of the tree. People afflicted with ague were directed to repair to the Cross Oaks which grew at the junctions of cross-roads, for the purpose of transferring to them their malady. Aguish patients were ordered to proceed without speaking or crossing water, to a lofty Willow, to make a gash in it, breathe three times into the crevice, close it quickly, and hasten away without looking back: if they did this correctly, the ague was warranted to leave them. A twisted neck or cuts in the body were thought to be cured by twisting a Willow round the affected part. In the West of England, peasants suffering from blackhead were bidden to crawl under an arched Bramble, and if they had the toothache, the prescribed remedy was for them to bite the first Fern that appeared in Spring. In other parts of the country toothache was cured by sticking into the bark of a young tree the decayed tooth after it had been drawn. If a child did not willingly learn to walk, the Wise Woman of the village would direct its troubled mother to make it creep through the long withes of the Blackberry-bush, which were grown down to the earth, and had taken fresh root therein. Sufferers from gout were relieved by the Witch transferring the disorder to some old Pine-tree, or rather to the genius inhabiting it. Many magical arts attended the transference of the disease to the spirit of the vicarious tree, and the operation was generally accompanied by the recital of some formula. Amongst the forms of adjuration was the following commencement: “Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!” A sufferer from cramp was ordered to stretch himself on a Plum-tree, and say, “Climbing-plant, stand! Plum-tree, waver.”