iS6 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



the angels at the birth of the Messiah. Our old Teutonic 

 ancestors hung the verdant boughs of the holly in their 

 dwellings, that the Sylvan spirits might, fleeing from the 

 rigour of Winter in the storm-swept woods, find in its 

 shelter a welcome resting-place. The early Christians, 

 instead of striving to abolish ingrained customs, confirmed 

 them, but diverted their meaning, and so the evergreen 

 boughs became the symbol of immortality, the expression 

 of rejoicing in the birth of Christ ; while the sharply- 

 pricking leaves and blood-red berries foreshadowed, in 

 an age of symbolic teaching, the ensanguined cross of 

 thorn, the ultimate triumph won through suffering and 

 death. 



The holly in Anglo-Saxon days was the holegan, a 

 word which some would have us accept as derived from 

 the leaves being hoi eege, all edge. This they certainly 

 are not, though one must admit on handling them that 

 their stiff spinous margins are much in evidence. In 

 old plant lists the holly is often called hulver, holm, huU, 

 or Christ-thorn. Botanically it is the Ilex aquifolium. 

 It has been suggested that Ilex is from the Celtic ac^ a point, 

 but this is certainly one of those cases where we may fail 

 to see the point. The specific name is from the Latin 

 acus and folium, and, happily enough, refers to the spiny 

 foliage of the holly. 



Pliny tells us that Tibertus built the city of Tibur 

 around three holly-trees, a flight of birds passing over 

 them being considered a most favourable omen. Pliny 

 declares that these trees were standing in his time, that he 

 had indeed seen them ; but, if so, they must have been 

 something over twelve hundred years old, and that seems 



