THE PASTURE THISTLE. 23 



any case it was not probably the one figured in our plate. Various 

 legends undertake to account for its becoming the national sym- 

 bol, and of course throw the .origin of it far back into the past. 

 This is one story : " When the Danes invaded Scotland, it was 

 deemed unwarlike to attack an enemy in the darkness of the night 

 instead of a pitched battle by day ; but on one occasion the in- 

 vaders resolved to avail themselves of stratagem, and, in order 

 to prevent their tramp being heard, marched barefooted. They 

 had thus neared the Scottish camp unobserved, when a Dane 

 unluckily stepped upon a sharp thistle, and uttered a cry of pain, 

 which immediately aroused the Scotch, who discovered the stealthy 

 foe, and defeated them with great slaughter. The thistle was 

 immediately adopted as the emblem of Scotland." For as good 

 a reason Rome might have adopted the goose as its national 

 bird, for did not a flock of cackling geese, on a like occasion 

 save Rome? There is, however, no authentic record of its ap- 

 pearance in Scottish history in this relation earlier than 1458, 

 when it is referred to in an inventory of the property of James 

 III., of Scotland, as "a covering of variand purpir tarter browdin 

 with thrissils and a unicorn," the unicorn being also an emblem 

 of Scotland. 



The Scottish knighthood, the Order of the Thistle, is of com- 

 paratively late origin. James I. of Great Britain, who was also 

 James VI. of Scotland, on his accession to the throne of the 

 United Kingdom, took as his badge a compound flower, half rose 

 and half thistle, and the stalk supporting this floral monstrosity 

 had on one side of it a rose leaf and on the other the leaf of a 

 thistle. 



If national emblems are emblematic, as I suppose, strictly 



