which is a Gaelic legend, that the flower was Rosa 

 white till a drop of Christ's blood fell from the Mystica. 

 Cross ... a variant of which is that the 

 robin, who plucked at the thorns in Christ's 

 forehead till they stained its breast red, leaned 

 exhausted against a wild white-rose on Calvary, 

 which ever after was red as blood. I do not 

 know the origin of the legend save that it is 

 Teutonic in its present colour and shape, of 

 how the Crown of Thorns was woven of 

 the Briar-Rose, and how the drops that fell 

 from the thorns became blood-hued blooms. 

 Teutonic also, I think, is the legend that 

 Judas made a ladder of the rose-briar with 

 which to reach the closed doors of heaven : 

 hence why it is that the name Judas-Stairs is 

 given to the Briar in some parts of Germany 

 to this day, and why the scarlet hips are called 

 Judasbeeren. 



Most beautiful of surviving rose-customs is 

 that akin to what is still done in some remote 

 parts of Europe, the placing of an apple into 

 the hand of a dead child, so that the little one 

 may have something to play with in Paradise. 

 I know of a dead Irish girl into whose right 

 hand was placed a white rose, and of a drowned 

 fisherman in whose hand was placed a red rose, 

 symbols of spiritual rebirth and of deathless 

 youth. Against this must be set the strange 



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