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is shown the Terebinth of Jacob, near which Joshua raised an altar.
The angel appeared to Gideon to encourage him to engage in battle
near a Terebinth-tree at Ophra, and on this spot, after the vicflory,
Gideon raised an altar. The Jews, by preference, bury their dead
beneath the shadow of a Terebinth.
T H I S T L E .—The Thistle {Carduus), in the first days of man,
was sent by the Almighty as a portion of the curse passed upon
him when he was made a tiller of the soil. God said, “ Thorns
and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee (Gen. iv.). One species,
the Milk Thistle {Carduus Marianus), is distinguishable by the milky
veins of its leaves, which were supposed to have derived their
peculiar colour from the milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen
upon them. This is sometimes called the Scotch Thistle, but it is
not so: it grows on the rocky cliffs near Dumbarton Castle, where,
if tradition be true, it was originally planted by the unfortunate
Mary, Queen of Scots. The Thistle of Scotland is believed to be
the Onopordum Acanthium, the Cotton Thistle, which grows by the
highways: this is the national insignia, and its flower-cup and
bristling leaves accord well with the motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit.”
Tradition says that the Thistle, with the motto rendered in homely
Scotch, “ Wha daur meddle wi' me ? '' was adopted as the symbol of
Scotland from the following circumstance:—A party of invading
Danes attempted to surprise the Scotch army by night. Under
cover of darkness, they approached the slumbering camp, but one
of them trod upon a prickly Thistle, and his involuntary cry of
pain roused some of the Scots, who flew to arms, and chased the
foe from the field. The Onicus acaulis, or stemless Thistle, is by
some considered to be the true Scotch Thistle, as it accords best
with the legend of the defeated Norsemen, and is, besides, the
Thistle seen in the gold bonnet-piece of James V. Carduus acan-
thoides and C. nutans are by others supposed to be the
“ Proud Thistle, emblem dear to Scotland’s sons,
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault.”
The Thistle has given its title to a Scotch order of knighthood,
which is said to have been instituted by Achaius, king of the
Scots, when he obtained a vidtory over Athelstan. The insignia
borne by the knights of the Order of the Thistle is a gold collar,
with Thistles and a sprig of Rue interlaced. A gold medal is also
worn, bearing a figure of St. Andrew. Mannhardt states that
in Mecklenburg there is a legend current which relates that in a
certain wild and barren spot, where once a murder had been committed,
there grows every day at noon a strangely-formed Thistle:
on the weird plant are to be seen human arms, hands, and heads,
and when twelve heads have appeared, the ghastly plant mysteriously
vanishes. A shepherd, one day, passed the spot where the
mystic Thistle was growing. His staff became tinder, and his
arms were struck with paralysis.------According to Apuleius, the wild
Thistle, carried about the person, possessed the magical property
of averting all ills from the bearer. In Esthonia, they place
Thistles on the Corn that has first ripened, to drive away any evil
spirit that may come to it. In divining, by an old English rite, a
girl, to find out which of three or four persons loves her best, takes
three or four heads of Thistles, cuts off their points, gives each
Thistle the name of one of these persons, and lays them under her
pillow. That Thistle which bears the name of the person loving
her most will put forth a fresh sprout. To dream of being surrounded
by Thistles is a lucky omen, portending that the dreamer
will be rejoiced by some pleasing intelligence in a short time.------
Astrologers state that Thistles are under the rule of Mars.
T H O R N . — According to a German tradition, the Black
Thorn springs from the blood of the corpse of a heathen slain in
battle. In Germany, the Easter fire was anciently called Buckthorn
because it was always kindled with that wood, as it is to this
day at Dassel, in Westphalia. Kuhn thinks the tree itself {Bocksdorn)
was so called from the sacrificial buck-goat which was burned upon
its wood in heathen times. The Celts have always reverenced
the Thorn-bush, and its wood was used by the Greeks for the
drilling-stick of their pyreia, an instrument employed for kindling
the sacred fire. The Thorn was also held by the Greeks to be a
preservative against witchcraft and sorcery. Nevertheless, in some
parts of England, witches were formerly reputed to be fond of a
Thorn-bush, and both in Brittany and in some parts of Ireland it
is considered unsafe to gather even a leaf from certain old and
solitary Thorns, which grow in sheltered hollows of the moorland,
and are the fairies’ trysting places. To this day, it is thought in
many rural distriéts to be a death-token, and therefore to take a
branch or blossom into a house is deemed to be unlucky.------
Josephus tells us that the “ bush ” out of which the Lord appeared
to Moses in a flame of fire was a Thorn. He writes: “ A wonderful
prodigy happened to Moses : for a fire fed upon a Thorn-bush;
yet did the green leaves and the flowers continue untouched, and
the fire did not at all consume the fruit branches.”—— According
to Arj^an tradition, the Hawthorn sprang from the lightning, and
as with other trees of like mythical descent, it was considered a
protecitive against fire, thunderbolts, and lightning. Sir John
Maundevile bears witness to this old belief, when, speaking of the
Albespyne, or Whitethorn, he sa y s :—“ For he that beareth a
braunche on hym thereof, no thondre, ne no maner of tempest may
dere [harm] hym ; ne in the hows that yt is ynne may non evil
ghost entre.’ The Whitethorn or Hawthorn has long had the
reputation of being a sacred tree, and the plant which had the
mournful distincition of supplying the crown of Thorns worn by our
Saviour at His crucifixion. Many other plants, however, have
been credited with this distincition, including the Buckthorn§
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