Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
in their snug nests they don’t feel the want of any 
covering. 
The roses are beginning. A crimson dog-rose, which I 
believe is Rosa turbiniata , has been out some days, and 
looks quite lovely with its bushy straggling branches 
spotted with flat crimson flowerets. Rosa spinossima , the 
Burnet rose, found on sandy seabanks not very far from 
here, and called locally the Cat Hep, is said to be the only 
rose which grows wild on Holy Island (Lindisfarne). In 
all probability it was introduced by St. Aidan and his 
monks. A similar little rose grows wild in East Anglia, in 
the neighbourhood of Dunwich, remarkable for the extreme 
smallness of its leaves. James Bird, the Suffolk poet, writes 
prettily of the “ Dunwich rose with snowlike blossom, soft 
pure and white as the cygnet’s bosom.” The tradition is, 
it was planted by the Grey friars, whose ruined church and 
monastery still overlooks the sea that has engulfed the town 
of old Dunwich. The fennel which I noticed growing wild 
in the same neighbourhood was probably a stray from the 
Greyfriars’ herbarium. Here the dog-roses are called Dog- 
heps. “ Hep” is an old English (and Scotch) word for “ hip,” 
from the Saxon. The Gloire de Dijon — Glory, as it is called 
here, which grows on the kitchen-garden wall — is covered 
with buds blooming fast. I do not think I care much for this 
rose ; to me it is rather coarse and uninteresting. Sir John 
Mandeville (that charming old myth !) gives such a pretty 
legend as the history of the birth of the rose, I must note it 
here : “At Betheleim is the Felde Floridus, that is to 
seyne the Feld florisched ; for als moche as a fayre mayden 
was blamed with wrong and sclaundered, for whiche cause 
sche was demed to the Dethe, and to be brent in that place, 
to the which she was ladd ; and as the Fyre began to brent 
about hire, she made hire preyeres to oure Lord, that He 
wolde helpe hire and make it to be knowen to alle men of 
His mercyfulli grace. And when sche had thus seyd, sche 
entered in the Fuyr; and anon was the Fuyr quenched and 
oute ; and the Brondes that were brennynge becomen red 
roseres, and the Brondes that weren not kyndled becomen 
48 
