Mexican Hawthorn (Crataegus mexicana) Photo by Tony Rudd at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_rodd/4887236725/

Dear Readers, we may not think of hawthorn as a Christmas plant here in the UK, but there are at least two reasons that we shouldn’t discount it. First up, the Mexican hawthorn (Crataegus mexicana) is turned into what looks like a rather delicious hot punch, or ponche, in Mexico: the plant is known as manzanita (little apple) in Spanish, or tejocote, which means ‘stone fruit’. The ponche also includes sugar cane, cloves, hibiscus, star anise, raisins and prunes, so you could  easily get a substantial number of your 5 fruit and veg a day. Did I ever tell you that when I mentioned this concept to my Mum, she asked if she could count lemon meringue pie, because it had lemons in it?

Ponche on sale in Mexico

Ponche is on sale at Christmas time, and on New Year’s Eve. For the Day of the Dead, the fruit of the Mexican hawthorn and candies made from the fruit are offered, and rosaries made from the fruit are part of the grave decorations. Candies called rielitos (because it looks like a tiny train track) is made from Mexican hawthorn fruit, sugar and chilli powder (though on further investigation I find that the commercial sweets are made with tamarind instead).

Homemade rielitos from https://cocinerosmxporelmundo.com/rielitos/

However! You do not have to go all the way to Mexico to find a link between hawthorn and Christmas. In Glastonbury there are hawthorns that come into flower at Christmas and then again in the spring: they are thought to be common hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna) but of the biflora subspecies, which means that they flower twice. This habit of springing into flower in the middle of winter has a long association with Joseph of Arimathea, a saint who was believed to have visited the West Country – in some tellings of the legend, he brought the young Jesus with him. In Cornwall, it’s believed that Joseph was originally a tin merchant, who came to Cornwall because it was a centre of the tin trade at that point. The legend of the Glastonbury Thorn, however, told that Joseph, bearing the Holy Grail and exhausted from his travels, leaned on his staff on Wearyall Hill outside Glastonbury, and the wood miraculously put down roots and burst into flower. This original tree was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War, but many trees had been propagated from it (including one that was on Wearyall Hill until it was vandalised in 2010).

Joseph of Arimathea was the subject of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’.  It seems to have become a popular song at funerals, weddings, sporting events, the Last Night of the Proms, and at political rallies for the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Party. It has been voted as ‘England’s National Anthem’ on several occasions. And yet this is a strange and mystical piece, as so many of Blake’s poems are. When belted out at high volume it certainly rouses the spirits, but what is actually going on is far from clear. Don’t get me wrong, I love Blake with a passion, but it sometimes feels as if this is a song that can be weaponised to support almost any view of what England’s ‘Green and Pleasant Land’ can be.

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

Anyhow, back to the Glastonbury Thorn! Some of the trees growing in the grounds of St John’s Church preserve the original double flowering, and every Christmas, children from St John’s Infant School gather around a tree in flower. They sing carols, and the oldest child cuts a flowering twig that is sent to the monarch in London.

Glastonbury Thorn in St John’s churchyard (Photo By michael ely, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13994476)

Incidentally, the variety of hawthorn that flowers twice probably comes originally from the Middle East, which is where Joseph of Arimathea would have travelled from. Coincidence? We’ll never know the full story of the Glastonbury Thorn, for sure, but we could all do with a few more miracles, and a magically regenerating tree from someone’s walking stick does it for me. Just imagine if all of our furniture decided that ‘enough’s enough’ and became oak trees and willows and pine forests again?