Page:Rural Hours.djvu/264

---

States: the white, the red, the green or yellow, the blue, and the black, besides the small and very rare flowering ash, only twenty feet high. Of these different kinds, only the white and the black are understood to belong to our highland county; both these are common here, and both are handsome and valuable trees, used for very many mechanical purposes. The white ash, indeed, is said to be as desirable as the hickory—our American tree being considered superior for timber to that of Europe, which it much resembles. When used for fuel, it has the peculiarity of burning nearly as well in a green state as when dry, and the timber also scarcely requires any seasoning. The black ash, more especially a northern tree, is abundant here; it is smaller than the white, and is much used by the Indian basket-makers, being thought rather preferable to the white for their purposes. It is amusing to remember that the small bows and arrows made to-day by the roving Indians as playthings for our boys, are manufactured out of the same wood used for the arms of heroes in the ancient world; many a great warrior besides Achilles has received his death-wound from an ashen spear; ashen lances were shivered in the tournaments of chivalrous days, by the stout knights of the middle ages, the Richards and Bertrands, Oliviers and Edwards. At the present day the ash is still used, with the beech, to arm the regiments of modern lancers. Bows, also, were made of the ash, as well as of the yew, in ancient times. For all we know, the bow of William Tell may have been an ashen one. There is one very remarkable association connected with the European ash, which is a hardy tree, clinging to the rocky mountains of Northern Europe. It figures largely in Scandinavian mythology. The ash-tree, Yggdrassil, was their tree of life, or an emblem of the world.