Old Christmas Eve, January 5
Up and down England's West Country coast from Marazion, one-time outpost of Cornwall's tin mines, on north to Paradise, in Somerset, the story of how Jesus visited Britain recurs persistently and in varying guises,--in folk song and proverb, in place name and oral tradition. But one must tramp on up to Priddy, high in the Mendips, as I have done, to hear people speak reverently of Jesus, who "came with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea," during the "hidden years" about which the Gospels tell us nothing. In humble cottages throughout these lonely windswept hills, once the center of Roman lead mining operations, people draw close to their hearths and speak of Jesus as the Beloved Friend, who recently passed this way.
"Everybody up here knows He came to the lead mines from Glastonbury with His uncle," said an old Priddy-born woman. Then, a radiant smile breaking over her wrinkled, care-worn features, she suddenly leaned forward, speaking confidentially:
"It makes us feel so safe to know our land is blessed:
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?"
she quoted haltingly from William Blake poem, Milton.
She stopped, groping for words.
"Please go on. How does the next line go?" I encouraged.
"Well, you ought ter know," said the old woman reprovingly. "Surely, you've 'ad as much schooling as I!"
Her husband, sitting opposite in the worn rocking chair, continued the poet's thoughts in his own way.
"You know," he said dreamily, "when the rains come and you look down the hills here, it's green all about. This is the spot!"
" Jesus came to Priddy," declared the plump postmistress. "And on the way He stopped at Charterhouse," she added, referring to the small hamlet some three miles back on the Mendips, once a thriving lead mining center of both Britons and Romans.
At Paradise, close to Burnham-on-Sea, the Holy Visitors traditionally began their journey, according to people in the vicinity. A farm woman left her green grocery untended to step up to the corner and explain the very route.
" Jesus and His uncle landed right down at the bottom of that road yonder," she said, pointing toward the sea. "They beached their flat-bottomed boat on the sand tops (dunes) and sojourned there awhile. Then they walked right up past here," she said, pointing to the grassy lane where we stood, "and went on to the 'Green Hump.' That's Brent Knoll," she explained, indicating the large hill rising some miles distant above lush, cattle-dotted pastures.
"You know," she added wistfully, "one day I hope to make the whole journey."
At Glastonbury, where it is believed Joseph and Jesus eventually arrived, the thorn blossoms each Christmastide. On January 5 pilgrims from far and near go to Glastonbury to see this thorn which blooms in St. John's churchyard, in plain view of passers-by. Branches of the shapely tree, which has waxy white flowers resembling those of English hawthorn, are reverently cut and arranged on St. John's altar for the Christmas Eve service. Tradition says many cures have been effected on the faithful, by their touching it. For, according to Tennyson:
. . . if a man Could touch or see it, he was healed at once By faith, of all his ills.
The Glastonbury Thorn is said to be an offshoot of the miraculous staff that Joseph of Arimathaea planted when journeying to Glastonbury. Traditionally, it blooms on Old Christmas Eve, January 5. Should the tree's blossoming vary by a few days in one direction or the other, then the fault is said to lie with the modern calendar. It was not until 1752 that England finally adopted the New Style calendar which already had been in use in Europe for some time. And many West Country folk believe that Christ was really born on January 6, Old Christmas Day, not on December 25 of the modern calendar.
We are told that a zealous Puritan chopped down the original thorn during the Civil Wars. Be this as it may, throughout the centuries pilgrims have carried many other thorns, slipped from the original, to distant places. At least three are in Glastonbury--the one already mentioned, a smaller tree growing within the ancient Abbey's precincts, and the young grafting recently planted on Wearyall Hill, at the very spot where, it is said, Joseph thrust his staff into the earth. No less than six such trees exist in Herefordshire alone, while other counties claim their thorns also, and hold special services to honor the Christmastide bloomings.
The Glastonbury Thorn is of Syrian origin and the story of how it traveled from Syria to a Somerset town constitutes an important chapter in the Glastonbury legend, "which is truth, not legend," according to a devout churchman with whom I talked.
As with all such living traditions, the Glastonbury story has many strands which sometimes merge, sometimes diverge widely. According to the popular English version of the legend, Joseph was a wealthy tin merchant who came to Cornwall in the course of extensive trading with the Phoenicians. Cornish miners still cherish the old song, "Joseph was a tin-man." On one of his trading voyages for tin in Cornwall and lead in the Mendips, he was accompanied by his great-nephew, the boy Jesus. Finally, they ". . . came in a ship of Tarshish to the Summerland (Summerset, or Somerset, the 'land where summer lingers') and sojourned in a place called Paradise," says an old record.
Paradise, as we have seen, is regarded by many as the starting point for the journey to Glastonbury, and from thence on up to the Mendips. Paradise is consequently closely identified with Celtic Glastonbury, once an island of the fens. It was to Glastonbury, then, after Jesus's Passion, that Joseph is thought to have brought his miraculous staff and the sacred chalice. There also, he is said to have founded the Wattle Church which later became the great Abbey; and there, in the Church of St. John, is his reputed tomb.
Thus, the Glastonbury Legend continues through the centuries, as a reality in the lives of England's West Country people. And Glastonbury is thought of as "the holyest erth of England," while the Thorn blooms each Christmas as a symbol of Christ's faithfulness to generations of believers.
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