The Glastonbury Thorn

Glastonbury tradition said Joseph of Arimathea stuck his hawthorn staff into Wearyall Hill, where it grew and blossomed every Christmas Day. A Puritan hacked down one of its two trunks under Elizabeth and the other was felled in the Civil War, but trees grafted from it were grown in the town and sold as the holy thorn. In 1753 the crowds who gathered on the new-style Christmas Day found no blossom, and reported that it flowered as usual on Old Christmas Day instead. The thorn does flower in winter, and a sprig from a Glastonbury tree is still cut each December and sent to the sovereign.