102 THE HAWTHORN AND ITS VARIETIES. 



THE HAWTHORN AND ITS VARIETIES. 



BY AN ARDENT ADMIRER. 



The garland of Flora does not possess a more charming blossom than 

 this British hedge beauty ; nor do the most luxurious spices of Asia 

 give a more grateful perfume than this sweet flowering shrub presents. 

 It is said that the hawthorn flowers not only regale the spirits by 

 their odour, but that they have the power also of counteracting poison. 

 It has been made the happy emblem of hope, because the young and 

 beautiful Athenian girls brought branches of hawthorn flowers, to 

 decorate their companions and friends on tlieir wedding day, whilst 

 they carried large boughs of it to the altar. The altar of Hymen was 

 lighted with torches made of the wootl of this tree, and it formed also 

 the flambeau which lighted the nuptial chamber. 



Diodorus, a Sicilian historian, who flourished about forty years 

 before the Christian era, tells us the Troglodites, when they interred 

 the corpses of their friends and parents, tied branches of hawthorn to 

 their bodies ; and then, laughing, strewed the body first with the 

 branches of this shrub, and afterwards with stones, until it was covered. 

 These simple people considered death as the morning of life, where 

 they should never separate. Happy hope! which gave the Trog- 

 lodites immortality, and the Grecian youths fond of marriages ; 

 may you, likewise, ever be the prop of the afflicted, and those Avhose 

 friends 



'• " When they once perceive 



The least rub in your fortune, fall away 



Like water from you, never found again 



But when they mean to sink ye." 



Religion, which was given to bless' mankind with cheerfulness and 

 hope, has always been converted by the crafty, in ignorant ages, into 

 rods of terror and torches of superstition ; and they did not fail to 

 seize upon the hawthorn bush as an instrument with which they might 

 impose on the credulous ; thus, in some parts of France, the country 

 people affirm to you in good faith that the hawthorn groans and sighs 

 on the evening of Good Friday, and on this superstition they have 

 made it the emblem of lamentation. There are others who gravely 

 adorn their hats with a bunch of hawthorn, in the belief that during a 

 storm the thunder will not dare to reach them, from respect to their 

 head-dress. It is also related, that on the morning following the 

 horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew a hawthorn was seen to blossom 

 in the church-yard of St. Innocent, in Paris, which is now converted 

 into the hall or great market. It is hardly necessary to state how dif- 

 ferently the two parties interpreted this phenomenon. 



We have also our Glastonbury thorn stories, to match those of our 

 neighbours. Sanctified deceit affirmed, that this thorn was the iden- 

 tical staflT of Joseph of Arimathea, the counsellor \\'ho buried Christ ; 

 who, according to the tradition of the abbey of Glastonbury, attended 

 with twelve companions, came over into Britain, and founded in honour 

 of the blessed Virgin the first Christian church in this island. As a 

 proof of his mission he is said to have stuck his staff' in the ground, 

 which immediately shot forth and blossomed ; and the vulgar for a long 

 time believed that this tree blossomed annually on Christmas-day. 



