the buds of the Hawthorn when just expanding, was
Ladies' Meat; and in Sussex it is called the Bread and Cheese tree.

In many parts of England charms or incantations are [247]
employed to prevent a thorn from festering in the flesh, as:--

"Happy the man that Christ was born,
He was crowned with a thorn,
He was pierced through the skin
For to let the poison in;
But His five wounds, so they say,
Closed before He passed away;
In with healing, out with thorn!
Happy man that Christ was born."

The flowers are fertilised for the most part by carrion insects, and a
certain undertone of decomposition may be detected (says Grant
Allen) by keen nostrils in the scent of the Mayflower. It is this
curious element, in what seems otherwise a pure and delicious
perfume, which attracts the meat-eating insects, or rather those
insects which lay their eggs and hatch out their larvae in decaying
animal matter. The meat-fly comes first abroad just at the time when
the Mayblossom breaks into bloom.

A Greek bride was sometimes decked with a sprig of Hawthorn, as
emblematic of a flowery future, with thorns intermingled. It is
supposed that "the Jewes maden," for our Saviour, "a croune of the
branches of Albespyne, that is, Whitethorn, that grew in the same
garden, and therefore hath the Whitethorn many vertues" being
called in France _l'epine noble_.

The shadows in the moon are popularly thought to represent a man
laden with a bundle of thorns in punishment of theft:--

"Rusticus in luna quem sarcina deprimit una,
Monstrat per spinas nulli prodesse rapinas."

"A thievish clown by cruel thorns opprest
Shows in the moon that honesty pays best."

[248] HEMLOCK and HENBANE.

The Spotted Hemlock (_Conium maculatum_), and the Sickly-smelling
Henbane (_Hyoscyamus niger_), are plants of common wild growth
throughout England, especially the former, and are well known
to everyone familiar with our Herbal Simples. But each is so
highly narcotic as a medicine, and yet withal so safely useful
externally to allay pain, as well as to promote healing, that their
outward remedial forms of application must not be overlooked
among our serviceable herbs. Nevertheless, for internal
administration, these herbs lie altogether beyond the pale of
domestic uses, except in the hands of a doctor.

The Hemlock is an umbelliferous plant of frequent growth in our
hedges and roadsides, with tall, hollo