Part 36 (1/2)

[102] At Wormesley in Herefords.h.i.+re there is a Holy Thorn which is still believed to blossom exactly at twelve o'clock on Twelfth Night.

”The blossoms are thought to open at midnight, and drop off about an hour afterwards. A piece of thorn gathered at this hour brings luck, if kept for the rest of the year.” As recently as 1908 about forty people went to see the thorn blossom at this time (see E. M.

Leather, ”The Folk-Lore of Herefords.h.i.+re” [London, 1912], 17).

[103] Compare the struggle for the ”Haxey hood,” described in Chapter XVI., p. 347.

[104] This may be compared with the ancient Greek _Eiresione_, ”a portable May-pole, a branch hung about with wool, acorns, figs, cakes, fruits of all sorts and sometimes wine-jars.”{35}

[105] It by no means necessarily follows, of course, that they were exclusively Roman in origin.

[106] In Welsh it has also the name of ”the tree of pure gold,” a rather surprising t.i.tle for a plant with green leaves and white berries.

Dr. Frazer has sought to explain this name by the theory that in a roundabout way the sun's golden fire was believed to be an emanation from the mistletoe, in which the life of the oak, whence fire was kindled, was held to reside.{47}

[107] In the neighbourhood of Reichenberg children hang up their stockings at the windows on St. Andrew's Eve, and in the morning find them filled with apples and nuts{64}--a parallel to Martinmas and St. Nicholas customs, at a date intermediate between the two festivals.

[108] ”He has more to do than the ovens in England at Christmas.”

[109] The following quotation from an ancient account book is tersely suggestive of the English Christmas:--

s. d.