pPant "bore, Tsc^cT^Ci/, cmE "bijricy. 5^3 



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 sur- 

 rounded 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. 



THORN. — 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 Buck- 

 thorn 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 distri(5^s 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 Aryan tradition, the Hawthorn sprang from the lightning, and 

 as with other trees of like mythical descent, it was considered a 

 protecTiive against fire, thunderbolts, and lightning. Sir John 

 Maundevile bears witness to this old belief, when, speaking ot the 

 Albespyne, or Whitethorn, he says : — " 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 distincflion of supplying the crown of Thorns worn by our 

 Saviour at His crucifixion. Many other plants, however, have 

 been credited with this distinclion, including the Buckthorns 



