Ash (Fraxinus spp.) as Herbal and Traditional Cure

The British native species of ash, Fraxinus exclesior has had numerous uses in folk medicine and folklore. In the Scottish Highlands, ash sap was traditionally given to a newborn baby as its first nourishment-a practice that it has been suggested, could originate in Persia, where the sweet sap of the so-called manna ash (Fraxinus ornus) was dried and eaten for its food value and its action as a gentle laxative. Ash sap has been used to treat earache in Ireland, and also in England right up to the present day (Hatfield MS). This remedy can be traced back to Saxon Britain (Black 1883: 197). In the Scottish Highlands, burned ash bark was used as a treatment for toothache. Other folk medicinal uses for the native British ash include a poultice of the leaves to treat snake bites. Both Pliny and Gerard claimed that there was such a strong antipathy between the ash and the snake that a snake would pass through fire to avoid the tree (Black 1883: 196). A Somerset proverb recorded in 1912 reflects this belief (Tongue 1965: 35). In West Somerset, there was a custom of hanging a wreath of flowers on an ash tree near a farm to protect the animals and people against snake bites. Smoke from burning ash was used to treat ringworm

Folk uses of the ash involve some clear examples of the transference of disease. One custom, made famous by Gilbert White in the eighteenth century, was to make a so-called shrew-ash, by imprisoning a live shrew in a hole bored in an ash tree. This tree then maintained its medicinal virtue for its lifetime. Such trees were used as "cures" for a variety of ailments, including whooping cough and paralysis. Warts were "transferred" to ash trees in a variety of ways. In one method, a pin was stuck in each wart and afterward in the ash tree, where it was left. Hernia in children was thought to be curable by splitting open a growing ash sapling and passing the child through the opening. The tree was then bound up, and as it healed, so would the child. This custom has been recorded in use in Sussex as recently as the 1920s (Allen 1995: 162). In North American folk medicine, as in British and Irish, ash sap was used to treat earache. Another use for the ash was as an aid to weight reduction; for this purpose, the dried leaves were used as a tea (Meyer 1985: 101, 265). A preparation of ash bark tea was used in the treatment of snake bite, again reflecting the claim of an antipathy between snakes and ash. There is an echo of the British folk remedy for hernia in a report from Burlington County, New Jersey, of children being treated for ruptures by being passed through a split in a tree, but the type of tree is not specified (Black 1883: 68). A child could be passed through a split holly, oak, or ash, for the cure of hernia (Puckett 1981: 396). Other uses of ash in North American folk medicine include wound treatment. Fraxinus americana was also used as an emmenagogue (UCLA Folklore Archives 1_5605). In Native American medicine there were numerous uses for various species of ash (Moerman 1998: 238-239). Ash sap was widely used to treat earache, and the method of obtaining the sap is identical to that described for Scotland (Black 1980: 218). White ash (Fraxinus americana) was used to provoke menstruation and as an abortifacient by the Abnaki. Both roots and flowers of this species have been used in snake bite treatment (Moerman 1998: 238). Black ash (Fraxinus nigra) has been used as a tonic and an antirheumatic .