78 MESPILUS. 



and maintain in healthy vigour those monuments of the gallant 

 chivalry of the founder. — (2.) R. A not less famous Thorn — "the 

 Eeldon Tree," — grew at Earlstoun or Erceldoune, associated with one 

 of Thomas the Rhymer's prophecies : 



" This Thorn-tree, as lang as it stands, 

 Earlstoun sail possess a' her lands." 



This tree was blown down by a high wind in the spring of 1821. 

 Chambers' Popular Rhymes, p. 8 : Trans. Berw. N. Club, i. 146. — 



" Methinks the visioned bard I see 

 Beneath the mystic Eildon Tree, 

 Piercing the mazy depths of Time, 

 And weaving thence prophetic rhyme ; 

 Beings around him that had birth 

 Neither in Heaven, nor yet on earth ; 

 And at his feet the broken law 

 Of Nature, through whose chinks he saw." — MoiR. 



D. iLat(j)tl)onw. The name of this onstead was conferred so recently 

 as 1712, but the Thorns from which the name was derived appear to 

 have been of long previous existence. They occupied about a quarter 

 of an acre in the middle of a pasture field, but the clump was reduced 

 to a few old and withered shrubs when, in 1827, the late Mr. Wilkie 

 replanted the plot and surrounded it with a fence. It was the custom 

 for passers-by to suspend upon the branches of the original thorns 

 fragments of cloth and rags of any kind. Raine's N. Durham, p. 232. 

 The custom is discontinued, but many now alive remember it*. 

 On inquiring at one of these as to the object of the votive offering, 

 the answer was — " Weel — I don't know — something I suppose about 

 the witches." More likely it was suspended to propitiate or please 

 the " good people." The place is one seemingly more fit for their 

 moonlight revels than for the sorceries of the sisters of Hecate. 



Boys in autumn go out in groups to gather the ripened Haws, and 

 they look out eagerly for those with double stones, which they dignify 

 with the name of l^uTU^aioi. Having sucked the pulp from the 

 stone, they amuse themselves by blowiug the latter at each other 

 through their pop-guns, made from the hollow stalks of the hemlock. 

 Haws, they believe, are apt to fill the teeth with lies; for the number 



* Instances proving a prevalence of a similar custom over Britain, and 

 the Old World in general, may be seen in Brand's Popular Antiquities, ii. 

 p. 380. I may add one which shows that it extended to the New World 

 also. In the " Jom'nal of an Expedition to the Mauvaises Terres and the 

 Upper Missouri in 1850," by Thaddeus A. Culbertson, it is stated, on 

 the authority of Mr. Mackenzie, who had had " great opportunity for 

 learning the customs and habits of the Indians," that " while they have no 

 priests nor regular religious system, they all worship something — they oifer 

 sacrifices of cloth and other articles to the Great Spirit, and this is done by 

 simply casting them into the prairies, with some form of prayer I suppose. 

 Scarlet cloth is generally preferred for this, also cahco with red in it, and 

 sheet-iron kettles that have not been used." Report of the Smithsonian 

 Institution for 1 850, p. 89. 



