THE HAWTHORN. 



185 



Avelon."^ Here he fixed his staff in the ground 

 (a dry Thorn sapling, which had been his com- 

 panion through all the countries he had traversed) 

 and fell asleep. When he awoke, he found, to 

 his great surprise, that his staff had taken root, 

 and was covered with white blossoms. From this 

 miracle, he drew a very natural conclusion, that as 

 the use of his staff was taken from him, it was or- 

 dained that he should fix his abode in this place. 

 Here, therefore, he built a chapel, which, by the 

 piety of succeeding times, increased to its sub- 

 sequent magnificence. Gilpin, in his Observations 

 on the Western Farts of England, gives the fol- 

 lowing amusing account of the veneration with 

 which it was regarded at no more distant period 

 than the close of the last century. I should ill 

 deserve the favours I met with from the learned 

 antiquarian who has the care of these ruins, 

 though he occupies only the humble craft of a 

 shoemaker, if I did not attempt to do some justice 

 to his zeal and piety. No picturesque eye could 

 more admire these venerable remains for their 

 beauty, than he did for their sanctity. Every 

 stone was the object of his devotion. But above 

 all the appendages of Glastonbury, he reverenced 

 most the famous Thorn which sprang from St. 

 Joseph's staff, and blossoms at Christmas. 



It was at that time," he said, when the King 

 resolved to alter the common course of the year,-}- 

 that he first felt distress for the honour of the 

 house of Glastonbury. If the time of Christmas 



* The high ground on which the Abbey of Glastonbury stands is 

 thus named, and tradition asserts that it T\'as in remote times really an 

 island, the meadows around it having been since formed by the retiring 

 of the sea. 



t The alteration of the Calendar alluded to at p. IBO. 



