The Hawthorn. 
59 
Long after its fleecy flowers have faded, the hawthorn remains 
one of our most ornamental shrubs, for its glossy green leaves 
and bright scarlet berries form a very pretty picture, besides 
providing shelter for some of our most melodious songsters : 
these little warblers find an abundant supply of food in the 
haws, as the berries are called. Lord Bacon, in his “ Essays,” 
observes that “ a store of haws portend cold winters,” and the 
allegation is believed to be correct. The yellow-berried haw¬ 
thorn is familiarly called the golden thorn, because its fruit is 
golden-hued, and its young buds are of a bright yellow. The 
Mexican thorn is said to have large yellow fruit, which might 
rival the golden apples of the Hesperides in appearance. To 
the wintry adornments of this bush Phillips prettily alludes : 
“ Long pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show, 
While through the ice the crimson berries glow. ” 
The whitethorn has been revered as a sacred tree from the 
earliest ages. Mr. Charles Hardwick, in a very interesting 
paper on the “Customs of Christmas and Yule-tide,” alludes at 
some length to the presumed sanctity of this tree, and quotes 
these remarks of a writer in the “ Quarterly Review,” on 
“Sacred Trees and Flowers.” “The whitethorn,” he says, “is 
one of the trees most in favour with the fairies ; and, both in 
Brittany and in some parts of Ireland, it is held unsafe to 
gather even a leaf from certain old and solitary thorns which 
grow in sheltered hollows of the moorland, and are the fairies’ 
trysting-places. But no evil ghost dares to approach the white¬ 
thorn.” This same writer presumes that the legendary sanctity 
of this tree arose from the belief that the crown of thorn with 
which Christ was crowned was made from its branches ; but 
Mr. Hardwick gives ample proof of its having been held in re¬ 
ligious esteem long prior to the existence of Christianity. Sir 
John Maundeville, the brave old English traveller, thus gives 
the tradition referred to : “ Then was our Lord led into a 
garden .... and the Jews scorned Him, and made Him a 
crown of the branches of th Aubfyine, that is, whitethorn, which 
grew in the same garden, and set it on His head. . And there¬ 
fore hath the whitethorn many virtues. For he that beareth 
a branch on him thereof, no thunder, or manner of tempest, 
may hurt him; and in the house that it is in may no evil 
ghost enter.” 
