182 



THE HAWTHORN. 



object of making the emblem of hope and hap- 

 piness the instrument of inflicting pain. Such 

 a motive would accord well with the spirit which 

 demanded the Cross and the purple robe. In 

 some parts of France, the country people affirm 

 that the Hawthorn utters groans and sighs on 

 the evening of Good Friday ; and when a thunder- 

 storm is impending they gravely adorn their hats 

 with a bunch of its leaves, in the belief that, thus 

 protected, the lightning cannot touch them. It 

 is also related, that on the morning which fol- 

 lowed the horrible massacre of the French Pro- 

 testants by the Roman Catholics on St. Bartho- 

 lomew's day, a Hawthorn in the churchyard 

 of St. Innocent, in Paris, suddenly put forth its 

 blossoms for the second time. 



A custom exists at the Seven Churches, Glen- 

 dalough, in the County of Wicklow, of hanging 

 shreds of clothing to an old Thorn which over- 

 shadows a Holy Well, on the day on which the 

 Patron Saint Kevin is commemorated. The same 

 practice is said to be common in many other parts 

 of Ireland. It is hard to say in what super- 

 stitious belief this singular custom originated, or 

 what benefit the deluded fanatics suppose to 

 accrue to themselves from its observance. It is 

 not, however, confined to the Roman Catholics of 

 Ireland, for the Mahommedans of Africa, and the 

 Pagans of South America, practise a similar observ- 

 ance. Suez," says a traveller in the East, was 

 distant twenty-four miles, and these were accom- 

 plished in four hours and a half. Only two small 

 trees are to be met with in the desert — a space of 

 eighty-four miles — one of which is decorated wdth, 

 and consecrated to, the rags of the pious pilgrims 



