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Him, and made Him a crown of the branches of the Albespyne,
that is. White Thorn, which grew in the same garden, and set it on
His head...........................And therefore hath the White Thorn many
virtues. For he that beareth a branch thereof, no thunder or
manner of tempest may hurt him; and in the house that it is in
may no evil spirit enter.” A Roman Catholic legend relates that
when the Holy Crown blossomed afresh, whilst the viflorious
Charlemagne knelt before it, the scent of Hawthorn filled the air.
The Crown of Thorns was given up to St. Louis of France by the
Venetians, and placed by him in the Sainte Chapelle, which he built
in Paris. The Feast of the Susception of the Holy Crown is
observed at the church of Notre Dame, in Paris, in honour of this
cherished relic. The Crown of Thorns is enclosed within a glass
circle, which a priest holds in his hands ; he passes before the kneeling
devotees, who are ranged outside the altar rail, and offers the
crown to them to be kissed. The Norman peasant constantly wears
a sprig of Hawthorn in his cap, from the belief that Christ’s crown
was woven of it. The French have a curious tradition that when
Christ was one day resting in a wood, after having escaped from a
pursuit by the Jews, the magpies came and covered Him all over
with Thorns, which the kindly swallows [ponies de Dieu) perceived,
and hastened to remove. A swallow is also said to have taken
away the Crown of Thorns at the Crucifixion. The Hawthorn
is the distinguishing badge of the royal house of Tudor. When
Richard HI. was slain at Bosworth, his body was plundered of its
armour and ornaments. The crown was hidden by a soldier in a
Hawthorn-bush, but was soon found and carried back to Lord
Stanley, who, placing it on the head of his son-in-law, saluted him
as King Henry V II. To commemorate this pifluresque incident,
the house of Tudor assumed the device of a crown in a bush of
fruited Hawthorn. The proverb of “ Cleave to the crown, though
it hang on a bush,” alludes to the same circumstance. The
Hawthorn has for centuries borne in England the favourite name
of “ May,” from its flowering in that month:
“ Between the leaves the silver Whitethorn shows
Its dewy blossoms pure as mountain snows.”
In olden times, very early on May-day morning, lads and lasses
repaired to the woods and hedgerows, and returned, soon after
sunrise, laden with posies of flowers, and boughs of blooming
Hawthorn, with which to decorate the churches and houses:
even in London boughs of May were freely suspended over the
citizens’ doorways. Chaucer tells us how:—
“ Furth goth all the Courte, both most and lest,
To fetche the flouris freshe, and braunche, and blome,
And namely Hawthorne brought both page and grome,
With freshe garlandis partly blew and white,
And than rejoisin in their grete delighte.”
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In Lancashire, at the present day, the Mayers still, in some
distrifls, go from door to door, and sing:—
“ We have been rambling all this night,
And almost all this day;
And now returned back again,
We’ve brought you a branch of May.
“ A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands ;
It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out
By the work of our Lord’s hands.”
Aubrey, writing in 1686, records that at Woodstock, in Oxfordshire,
the people were accustomed on May-eve to go into the park
and procure a number of Hawthorn-trees, which they set before
their doors. In Huntingdonshire, on May-day morn, the young
men used formerly to place, at sunrise, a branch of Hawthorn
in blossom, before the door of anyone they wished to honour.-----
A curious superstition survives in Suffolk, where to sleep in a
room, with the Hawthorn in bloom in it during the month of May,
is considered, by country folk, to be unlucky, and sure to be
followed by some great misfortune. In some parts of Ireland, it
is thought unlucky to bring blossoming Hawthorn indoors, and
unsafe to gather even a leaf from certain old and solitary Thorns
which grow in sheltered hollows of the moorlands, and on the
fairies’ trysting places. It is considered unlucky to cut down a
Hawthorn-tree, and in many parts the peasants refuse to do it:
thus we read, in a legend of county Donegal, that a fairy had tried
to steal one Joe McDonough’s baby, and, telling the story to her
neighbours: “ I never affronted the gentry [fairies] to my knowledge,”
sighed the poor mother; “ but Joe helped Mr. Todd’s
gardener to cut down the old Hawthorn-tree on the lawn Friday
was eight days: an’ there’s them that says that’s a very bad thing
to do. I fleeched him not to touch it, but the master he offered
him six shillings if he’d help wi’ the job, for the other men refused.”
“ That’s the way of it,” whispered the crones over their pipes and
poteen—“ that’s just it. The gude man has had the ill luck to displease
the ‘ gentry,’ an’ there will be trouble in this house yet.” ------
Among the Pyrenean peasantry Hawthorn and Laurel are thought
to secure the wearer against thunder. The inhabitants of Biarritz
make Hawthorn wreaths on S t.John ’s Day: they then rush to the sea,
plunge in after a prayer, and consider themselves safe during the ensuing
twelve months from the temptation of evil spirits. The old
herbalists prescribe the distilled water of the Haws of the Hawthorn,
as an application suited to “ any place where thorns or splinters
doe abide in the flesh,” the result being that the decocflion “ will
notably draw them out.” Lord Bacon tells us, that a “ store of
Haws portends cold winters.” Among the Turks, a branch of
Hawthorn expresses the wish of a lover to receive a kiss. The
Hawthorn attains to a great age, and its wood is remarkably
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