On Good Friday, in remembrance of the Passion of our Lord, all the trees, says the legend, shudder and tremble. The Swedes and Scotch have a tradition that Christ was scourged with a rod of the dwarf Birch, which was once a noble tree, but has ever since remained stunted and lowly. It is called _Láng Fredags ris_, or Good Friday rod. There is another legend extant, which states that the rod with which Christ was scourged was cut from a Willow, and that the trees of its species have drooped their branches to the earth in grief and shame from that time, and have, consequently, borne the name of Weeping Willows. The Crown of Thorns. Sir J. Maundevile, who visited the Holy Land in the fourteenth century, has recorded that he had many times seen the identical crown of Thorns worn by Jesus Christ, one half of which was at Constantinople and the other half at Paris, where it was religiously preserved in a vessel of crystal in the King’s Chapel. This crown Maundevile says was of “Jonkes of the see, that is to sey, Rushes of the see, that prykken als scharpely as Thornes;” he further adds that he had been presented with one of the precious thorns, which had fallen off into the vessel, and that it resembled a White Thorn. The old traveller gives the following circumstantial account of our Lord’s trial and condemnation, from which it would appear that Jesus was first crowned with White Thorn, then with Eglantine, and finally with Rushes of the sea. He writes:--“In that nyghte that He was taken, He was ylad into a gardyn; and there He was first examyned righte scharply; and there the Jewes scorned Him, and maden Him a croune of the braunches of Albespyne, that is White Thorn, that grew in the same gardyn, and setten it on His heved, so faste and so sore, that the blood ran doun be many places of His visage, and of His necke, and of His schuldres. And therefore hathe the White Thorn many vertues; for he that berethe a braunche on him thereoffe, no thondre, ne no maner of tempest may dere him; ne in the hows that it is inne may non evylle gost entre ne come unto the place that it is inne. And in that same gardyn Seynt Petre denyed oure Lord thryes. Aftreward was oure Lord lad forthe before the bischoppes and the maystres of the lawe, in to another gardyn of Anne; and there also He was examyned, repreved, and scorned, and crouned eft with a White Thorn, that men clepethe Barbarynes, that grew in that gardyn; and that hathe also manye vertues. And afterward He was lad into a gardyn of Cayphas, and there He was crouned with Eglentier. And aftre He was lad in to the chambre of Pylate, and there He was examynd and crouned. And the Jewes setten Hym in a chayere and cladde Hym in a mantelle; and there made thei the croune of Jonkes of the see; and there thei kneled to Hym, and skorned Hym, seyenge: ‘Heyl, King of the Jewes!’” [Illustration: Relics of the Crucifixion. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]