THORN. | NATURAL HISTORY. 303 
THE common Thistle, whereof the greatest quantity of 
down is gathered for divers purposes, as well by the poor 
to stop pillows, cushions, and beds for want of feathers, 
as also bought of the rich upholsters to mix with the 
feathers and down they do sell, which deceit would be 
looked into. The leaves and roots hereof are a remedy 
for those that have their bodies drawn backward. 
Gerard’s “ Herbal,” bk. ji. ch. cccclxxvi. 
Tue tender leaves of our Lady’s Thistle, the prickles 
taken off, are sometimes used to be eaten with other 
herbs. The seeds being drunk are a remedy for infants 
that have their sinews drawn together, and for those that 
are bitten of serpents; and it is thought to drive away 
serpents, if it be but hanged about the neck. 
Ibid, ch. cccclxxvii. 
Tue root of carline Thistle is an enemy to all manner 
of poisons; it doth not only drive away infections of the 
plague, but also cureth the same, if it be drunk in time. 
And it is given to those that have been dry-beaten, and. 
fallen from some high place. Ibid., ch. cccelxxxi. 
VY. Carduus Benedictus. 
Thorn. 
A THORN is a tree with sharp pricks, and is as it were 
armed with pricks against wrongs of them that touch it. 
And properly to speak, the thorn is the prick that groweth 
out of the thorn or of herbs and trees with pricks, and 
the prick springeth out of the stock or of the stalk, and is 
great next to the tree and stalk, and sharp outward at the 
point. And it is not the intent of kind that trees be shar 
with pricks and thorns; but it happeth and cometh of 
unfastness and unsadness of the tree, by the which cold 
humour is drawn that is but little sodden, and is drawn 
and passeth by pores and holes outward, and is harded by 
heat of the sun, and made a thorn or a prick, and is 
made small and sharp at the end for scarcity of matter, 
and sometime is sharp and somedeal bending, as it fareth 
in Briers and Roseres [Rose-trees] ; sometime the point is 
a-reared upright. Oft growing of thorns is token of 
