1644 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 
It is said that a farmer's wife, near Arundel, used to make a quantity 
of blackberry jam, and not having the usual amount brought she asked 
a woman to let her children gather some more, to which the reply was, 
‘“Ma'am, don’t you know this is the 11th October?” ‘ Yes,” she said. 
‘Bless me, ma'am, and you ask me to let my children go out black- 
berrying? Why, I thought everyone knew that the devil went round 
on the 1oth October and spat on all the blackberries, and that if 
any person were to eat on the 11th he or someone belonging to him 
would either die or fall into great trouble before the year was out,” 
was the further reply. The devil is said to throw his cloak over 
blackberries and make them unwholesome, and in Ireland to stamp 
on them. 
The fruit was said to drive away serpents. To dream of passing 
through places covered with brambles foretells misfortune, and if you 
are pricked secret enemies will injure you in your friends’ eyes, and if 
blood’ is drawn you lose money, while if you are unhurt you will 
triumph. An early harvest is predicted if brambles bloom early. Its 
mode of growth made it a type for lowliness, and an emblem of remorse 
from the fierceness with which a passer-by is grasped. The Black- 
berry is one of the plants thought to have made up the crown of 
thorns. 
Bramble leaves are used for scalds in Cornwall, 9 leaves being 
dipped in spring water, and this charm repeated three times: 
“There came three angels out of the East, 
One brought fire, and two brought frost; 
Out fire and in frost 
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”. 
In the same country warts were cured by the first blackberries of 
the season. 
It was said to arise thus: “The cormorant was once a wool mer- 
chant. He entered into partnership with the bramble and bat, and 
freighted a large ship with wool. She was wrecked, and the firm 
became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about all mid- 
night to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving into the 
deep to discover its foundered vessel, while the bramble seizes hold of 
every passing sheep to make up his loss by stealing the wool.” 
The fruit is largely utilized for making jams, tarts, pies, and even 
wine, and is quite a regular autumn industry in the country districts. 
The stems are also used in thatching for binding the roof together, and 
making straw articles and mats. 
