Chapter VIII

.).

[102] At Wormesley in Herefordshire 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 Herefordshire" [London, 1912], 17).

[103] Compare the struggle for the "Haxey hood," described in