222 



THE HAWTHORN. 



wood being gone. It still puts forth blossoms 

 and haws everywhere yearly, but I think during 

 later years it has been sensibly going off, and is 

 not the tree it was even five years ago.' 



^' Subsequently to our receiving this informa- 

 tion, we spent part of a day amongst the villagers 

 of Hethel, for the purpose of collecting any tra- 

 ditions that might be retained regarding this tree ; 

 but we had the satisfaction only to know that 

 what is embodied in the foregoing statement is 

 all that we could learn from them regarding it. 

 The older inhabitants with whom we conversed, 

 some of them nearly ninety years old, ascribe to 

 it an extraordinary age, and consider it, very 

 justly, we think, to have been the glory of all 

 the Thorns in the neighbourhood for many cen- 

 turies. 



This, however, is saying but little ; for its 

 very appearance justifies us in allotting to it an 

 age of more than five centuries, whilst its size as 

 a Thorn is remarkable. Our measurement of it 

 stands as follows : — at one foot from the base of 

 the trunk, twelve feet one inch in circumference, 

 and at five feet high, fourteen feet three inches ; 

 whilst the circumference of the space over which 

 the branches spread is thirty-one yards. Its trunk 

 is reduced to a mere shell, and though somewhat 

 divided, it has none of that shattered appearance 

 which we sometimes observe in the Oak. The 

 ramification of the top had assumed a style which 

 we can neither trace in the Oak, nor in any trees 

 of its own species, the branches forming a thick ' 

 grotesque mass most curiously interwoven. It is 

 covered all over with lichen, and crowned with 

 mistletoe, adding still more to the effect which 



