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Hawthorn Folklore
Ne'er cast a clout Till May
be out
Don't remove any clothing until the hawthorn is in
blossom
It is considered very unlucky to bring May blossom
indoors
If you should be out in a thunderstorm:
Beware the Oak,
It draws a stroke
Avoid the Ash, It courts a flash
Creep Under a
Thorn, It will save you from harm
The fair maid who the first of
May,
Goes to the field at the break of day,
And washes in dew from
the Hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be
O thou merry month
complete
May, thy very name is sweet!
May was maid in olden
times
And is still in Scottish rhymes:
May is the blooming hawthorn
bough,
May's the month that's laughing now
Leigh Hunt(1774-1859)
The famous Glastonbury Thorn is said to have sprung
from the staff of Joseph of Aramathea when he visited England to set up
the first Christian church.
Glastonbury is still a place of pilgrimage for
the religious and assorted mystics.
The trees (one on top of Wearyall
Hill and one each in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey and the Parish
Church) are a variety of the Common Hawthorn (bi-flora) which has a second
flowering period usually in early January (around Christmas Day before the
calendar change of 1752).
It only grows true from cuttings such as the one
at Appleton, Cheshire which, every July is decorated and danced
around in the "Bawming of the Thorn" ceremony. |
