THE CHERRY. 



263 



In popular mythology the Cherry-tree is, for 

 some unknown reason, associated with the cuckoo. 

 In Germany, " the cuckoo never sings until he 

 has thrice eaten his fill of cherries." In York- 

 shire, children were formerly, and perhaps still 

 are, accustomed to sing round a Cherry-tree 

 the following invocation : — 



Cuckoo, cherry-tree,* 

 Come down and tell me 

 How many years I have to live." 



Each child then shook the tree, and the num^ber 

 of cherries which fell betokened the years of its 

 future life. 



At Hamburgh a feast is annually celebrated, 

 called the Feast of Cherries," in which troops 

 of children parade the streets with green boughs, 

 ornamented with cherries, to commemorate a 

 triumph obtained in the following manner — In 

 1482, the Hussites threatened the city of Ham- 

 burgh with immediate destruction, when one of 

 the citizens, named Wolf, proposed that all the 

 children in the city, from seven to fourteen years 

 of age, should be clad in mourning, and sent as 

 supplicants to the enemy. Procopius Nasus, 

 chief of the Hussites, was so touched wdth this 

 spectacle, that he received the young suppli- 

 cants, regaled them wdth cherries and other 

 fruits, and promised them to spare the city. 

 The children returned crowned with leaves, 

 shouting Victory ! " and holding boughs laden 

 with cherries in their hands. 



* A popular nursery rhjone begins with the same words. 



