We have several word-pictures of the Holy Family from the mouth of the folk. Among the hymns sung by the Confraternities of the Virgin in Seville, is one in which occurs the following figure (_Catholic World,_ XXIV. 19):-- "Es Maria la nave de gracia, San Jose la vela, el Nino el timon; Y los remos son las buenas almas Que van al Rosario con gran devocion." _i.e._ ["Mary is the ship of grace, St. Joseph is the sail, The Child (Jesus) is the helm, And the oars are the pious souls who devoutly pray."] One of the little Italian songs called _razzi neddu,_ recorded by Mrs. Busk, is even briefer:-- "Maruzza lavava, Giuseppe stinnia, Gesu si stricava Ca minna vulia." ["Sweet Mary was washing, Joseph was hanging out the clothes to dry, Jesus was stretching Himself on the ground, For so His mother willed."] A popular Spanish lullaby recorded by De Gubernatis in his great study of birth customs and usages, runs as follows in translation (500. 310):-- "The Baby Child of Mary, Now cradle He has none; His father is a carpenter, And he shall make Him one. "The Lady, good St. Anna, The Lord St. Joachim, They rock the Baby's cradle, That sleep may come to Him. "Then sleep, thou too, my baby, My little heart so dear; The Virgin is beside thee, The Son of God is near." Among the many versions and variants of the familiar child's prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," cited by the Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco (500. 202-213), is to be included the following, found among the Greeks of the Terra d'Otranto, in Italy:-- "I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to sleep with my Mamma Mary; the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves me Christ to keep me company." Some of the most naïve legends are those which deal with the Child and His mother in the early years of life. "Our Lady's Thistle" (_Carduus Marianus_) receives its name "because its green leaves have been spotted white ever since the milk of the Virgin fell upon it, when she was nursing Jesus, and endowed it with miraculous virtues." A German tradition tells the same story of the _Polypodium vulgare_ (Marienmilch), based upon an older legend of the goddess Freia, many of whose attributes, with the lapse of heathendom, passed over to the central female figure of Christianity (448. 499). A similar origin of the white lily from the milk of Juno is given in Greek mythology (462. IV. 1671). In Devonshire, the custom of burning a faggot of ash at Christmas, is traced back to the fact that "the Divine Infant at Bethlehem was first washed and dressed by a fire of ash-wood" (448. 235).