The
leaves of that ash tree will, from thenceforth, be a specific against
the disease.
The universal prevalence of the superstition concerning the ash is
extremely curious.
J.G.
Kilkenny. {350}
_Death-bed Superstition_.--See _Guy Mannering_, ch. xxvii. and note
upon it:--
"The popular idea that the protracted struggle between life
and death is painfully prolonged by keeping the door of the
apartment shut, was received as certain by the superstitious
eld of Scotland."
In my country (West Gloucestershire) they throw open the windows at
the moment of death.
The notion of the escape of the soul through an opening is probably
only in part the origin of this superstition. It will not account for
opening _all_ the locks in the house. There is, I conceive, a notion
of analogy and association.
"Nexosque et solveret artus," says Virgil, at the death of Dido. They
thought the soul, or the life, was tied up, and that the unloosing
of any knot might help to get rid of the principle, as one may call
it.
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