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" Our Saviour was of a virgin bom, 



His head was crowned with a crown of Thorn ; 



It never canker'd nor fester'd at all, 



And I hope in Christ Jesus this never shall." 



" Christ was of a virgin l)om, 



And He was pricked l)y a Thorn, 



And it (lid never bell [throb] nor swell, 



As I trust in Jesus this never will. ' 

 •' Christ was crown'd with Thorns, 



The Thorns did bleed, but did not rot, 



No more shall thy finder. 



In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



In Herefordshire, the burning of a Thorn-bush is supposed to atfl 

 as a charm against smut or mildew in Wheat. When the crop is 

 just springing out of the ground, the farmer's servants rise before 

 daybreak, and cut a branch of some particular Thorn; they then 

 make a large fire in the field, in which they burn a portion of it, 



and hang up the remaining portion in the homestead. Tradition 



affirms that, at Hemer, in Westphalia, a man was engaged in 

 fencing his field on Good Friday, and had just poised a bunch of 

 Thorns on his fork, when he was at once transported to the Moon. 

 Some of the Hemer peasants declare that the Moon is not only 

 inhabited by this man with his Thorn-bush, but also by a woman 

 who was churning her butter one Sabbath during Divine Service. 

 Another legend relates how the Man in the Moon is none other 

 than Cain with a bundle of Briars. To dream you are sur- 

 rounded by Thorns, signifies that you will be rejoiced by some 

 pleasing intelligence in a very short time. 



THORN APPLE.— Gerarde, in his ' Herbal,' calls the Datura 

 Stramonium Thorny Apple of Peru : he speaks of it as a plant of 

 a drowsy and numbing quality, resembling in its effe(fts the Man- 

 drake, and he tells us that it is thought to be the Hippomaiies, which 

 Theocritus mentions as causing horses to go mad. The words of 

 the poet are thus translated by the old herbalist: — 



" Hippomanes 'mongst th' Arcadian springs, by which ev'n all 

 The colts and agile mares in mountains mad do fall." 



The juice of Thorn-Apples Gerarde guarantees, when boiled with 

 hog's grease and made into a salve, will cure inflammations, 

 burnings and scaldings, " as well of fire, water, boiling lead, gun- 

 powder, as that which comes by lightning." In India, the Datura is 

 sometimes employed by robbers as a magical means of depriving 

 their vicftims of all power of resistance : their mode of operation 

 being to induce them to chew and swallow a portion of the plant, 

 because those who eat it lose their proper senses, become silly 

 and given to inordinate laughter, feel a strong desire to be generous 

 and open-handed, and finally will allow anyone to pillage them. 

 The Indians apply to the Datura the epithets of the Drunkard, the 

 Madman, the Deceiver, and the Fool-maker. It is also called the tuft 

 of Siva (god of destruiftion). The Rajpoot mothers are said to be- 



