Briar

“ There she lay, so beautiful that he could not turn his eyes away. He stooped down and gave her a kiss. But as soon as he kissed her, Briar-Rose opened her eyes and awoke, and looked at him quite sweetly.
Then they went down together, and the King awoke, and the Queen, and the whole Court, and gazed at each other in great astonishment. And the horses in the courtyard stood up and shook themselves. The hounds jumped up and wagged their tails. The pigeons upon the roof pulled out their heads from under their wings, looked round, and flew into the open country. ”

“ It is probably the plant alluded to in the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the desolation of Jerusalem (v., 6) : “I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned or digged; but there shall come up Briars and Thorns.” Chandler tells us that he saw no other tree nor shrub within the walls of the Holy City when he visited it.——The Rose-briar is connected with an incident in the life of St. Benedict. This godly man, in his early life, lived for three years a solitary existence among the rocks of Subiaco, a wilderness forty miles from Rome. ”

“ When you talk of their helplessness and want of common sense, and inability to look out for themselves, you had better lie under a hedge as I have done, the briars scraping your neck, or scrunched down in a duckblind, with your feet in ice water, and study these simple-minded creatures. ”

“ The hip briar is easily found in hedges of old inclosures, which have not been plashed for many years; but it should be thoroughly seasoned before it is split, or the small pieces will be apt to warp in drying; it is cut into lengths of eight or ten inches for tops, spliced or glued together; after which they are properly tapered with planes and fine rasps, finished off with sandpaper, and the joints wrapped with silk well waxed; a small piece of whalebone is added to the wood, spliced and wrapped in a similar manner ”

“ Their texture is queerly like that of a scaled serpent, and is inexplicably nauseous to the touch–being as cold and clammy as the skin of a toad or other reptile. Near the central menhir is a singular stone-rimmed hollow which I cannot explain, but which may possibly form the entrance to a long-choked well or tunnel. When I sought to descend the hill at points away from the house I found the briars intercepting me as before, though the path toward the house was easily retraceable. ”

“ Richmond Briarley strode about his den, pulling his smoking jacket from a pair of vicious-looking antlers above the door, his slippers from the wings of Cupid poised above the glorious Psyche.
There was a princely abandon in the luxurious den he called “home.” Looking about it, one would conceive him to be a man quite beyond the ordinary—if the trophies, pictures, statuary, bespoke his individuality. ”

“ Its principal wealth arises from its agriculture, and the farms in the vicinity are remarkable for their rich pastures and produce. A stranger arriving at the entrance to Briarsleigh on a spring evening, with the sunset bathing the landscape in a golden misty sheen, would pause to gaze on a scene so fair; but on the evening of which we write, the bright landscape and the glowing sunset were unnoticed by the inhabitants of Briarsleigh Rectory. The lowered blinds, the stillness, and the absence of any living object near the picturesque building, told too plainly that it was the abode of death. ”

“ The bell stopped tolling with three, sharp, jerky taps. Madge Steele quickened her pace along the path and the newcomers followed her. Other girls were pouring into the building nearest to the main structure of Briarwood. ”

“ and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands, first to watch and then to speed; ”

“ Under the pavement of the chancel and back of the altar rail,—at which it was my privilege to kneel, while gazing upon this sacred spot,—is the grave of Byron. [26] Nothing is written on the stone that covers his sepulchre except the name of BYRON, with the dates of his birth and death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves, in brass, the gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his mother, on his right hand, and that of his Ada,—"sole daughter of my house and heart,"—on his left. ”

“ You would not have believed that the man who walked so quietly along the greensward with the moonlight on his face, could have been the same person who stood on [112] the deck of that brig and superintended the number of lashes that should be dealt on the back of a human being. Once or twice, as his glance fell on some familiar object, a sweet brier bush, perhaps, or a cluster of tall mulleins that had grown by the footpath since he was a child, his eyes would fill with tears. There was something holy and homelike in the stillness that made a child of this cruel man. ”

“ You would not have had all this underbrush, these dead limbs, these briers running riot over trees, and sometimes choking and killing them. You would have well-trimmed trees and velvet turf. But I love briers, dead limbs, and all, for their very savage freedom. Every once in a while you see in a wood a jessamine, or a sweet-brier, or a grape-vine, that throws itself into a gracefulness of growth which a landscape gardener would go down on his knees for, but cannot get. Nature resolutely denies it to him. ”

“ BRIER
GOOD FRIDAY
Because, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
Bends back the brier that edges life's long way,
That no hurt comes to heart, to soul no harm,
I do not feel the thorns so much to-day. ”

“ Those opportunities are like the beautiful wild flowers that blossom in every meadow and in every hedge, while, heedless or careless, unseeing or unknowing, man passes them by continually, or walks upon his way, and tramples them under his feet.
When they reached that spot, however, and the castle of Masseran was before their eyes, the brigand came up at a quick pace, saying, "Let us pause a moment, and see whether our companions have arrived before us. It might be dangerous for his deliverers to come too near the Lord of Masseran's gates without sufficient numbers." ”

“ He approached to inform them it was a [pg 156] fine morning, when the great beast of a bear "rose like the steam of rich distilled perfume" from the earth in front of them, and made a mouth at him. Juniper did not run, as might have been expected; he stood for a moment peering into the brute's cavernous jaws, and then flew! He absented himself with such extraordinary nimbleness that after he was a mile distant his image appeared to be standing there yet; and looking back he saw it himself. Baffled of his dwarf, the bear thought he would make a shift to get on, for the present, with an orphan. ”

“ Lord Byron's verses contain striking imitations of the Minstrel. At the time of my exile in England, Lord Byron was living at Harrow School, in a village ten miles from London. He was a child, I was young and as unknown as [Pg 130] he; he had been brought up on the heaths of Scotland, by the sea-side, as I in the marshes of Brittany, by the sea-side; he first loved the Bible and Ossian, as I loved them; he sang the memories of his childhood in Newstead Abbey, as I sang mine in Combourg Castle:
When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath. ”

“ A Rabbits best friend is his brier patch and he is seldom more than eight and one half hops away from it. Jenny Ragtail used to carry a copy of that beautiful poem, Brier Rose, in her reticule, so that she would always have a place of refuge in time of trouble. ”

“ A breath of cold air struck Byring full in the face; the boughs of trees above him stirred and moaned. A strongly defined shadow passed across the face of the dead, left it luminous, passed back upon it and left it half obscured. The horrible thing was visibly moving! At that moment a single shot rang out upon the picket-line - a lonelier and louder, though more distant, shot than ever had been heard by mortal ear! It broke the spell of that enchanted man; it slew the silence and the solitude, dispersed the hindering host from Central Asia and released his modern manhood. ”

“ Brig-antes as a Roman name of Tribes in three Celtic countries, is a natural result of the frequent occurrence of Briga as the first part of the names of Celtic places.
The “Allo-bryg-es.” The name of this warlike tribe, the Celtic inhabitants of Savoy, has also been the source of perplexity, which may be removed in the same manner. This tribe had a town, called by the Romans “Brig-icum,” which was said to be “the only one they had.”55 Now Allo-Bryga may reasonably be identified with Alpo-Briga, the Town of the Alps (Briga being clearly the common base of “Allo-bryg-es,” and “Brig-icum.”) ”

“ The brank or scold’s bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. The brank, sometimes called the gossip’s bridle, or dame’s bridle, or scold’s helm, was truly a “brydle for a curste queane.” It was a shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when worn, covering the entire head; with a spiked plate or flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth over the tongue. Hence if the offender spoke she was cruelly hurt. ”

“ When the magician saw that miracle, he said to Brigid, “You shall have all the butter for yourself, and the twelve cows which you have milked shall be yours also.” Brigid said, “Keep your cows, and give me my mother’s freedom.” The magician answered, “The cows and the butter and your mother are yours.” Then he believed in Christ and was baptized, and Brigid gave all his gifts to the poor, and returned to Dubtach with her mother. Her father offered to sell her to the king, saying that he wished to get rid of her because she gave to the poor everything she could lay her hands upon. ”

“ As has been seen, the goddesses Belisama and Sul, probably goddesses of fire, resembled Brigit in this.227 But Brigit, like Vesta, was at once a goddess of fire and of fertility, as her connection with Candlemas and certain ritual survivals also suggest. In the Hebrides on S. Bride's day (Candlemas-eve) women dressed a sheaf of oats in female clothes and set it with a club in a basket called "Briid's bed." Then they called, "Briid is come, Briid is welcome." Or a bed was made of corn and hay with candles burning beside it, and Bride was invited to come as her bed was ready. ”

“ Whilst the men of Erin were on the foray of the Táin, all that time Bricriu was being cured at Cruachan. And the day they returned from the expedition was the day Bricriu rose. 1He came with the rest to witness the battle of the bulls.1 2And this is why they selected Bricriu,2 for that Bricriu was no fairer to his friend than to his foe. 3"Come, ye men of Erin!" cried Bricriu; "permit me to judge the fight of the bulls,3 4for it is I shall most truly recount their tale and their deeds afterwards."4 And he was brought 5before the men of Erin5 to a gap whence to view the bulls. ”

“ Brier besought him to let go, and all the ant people came running to see, but dared not help, because the black ant was far bigger and stronger than they, and belonged to a very fierce tribe, which had destroyed their village more than once. So they ran away again as fast as they came; and when the black fellow had vented his rage, he went on his way, leaving the Emmet quite dead on the ground. Brier was very much grieved and shocked at such a display of temper, and cried over the departed ant very tenderly, as she laid him in the little house he would never want any more. ”

“ Somewhere in that vicinity lived a monstrous bear—a great hulking obnoxious beast who had no more soul than tail. This rascal had somehow conceived a notion that the appointed function of his existence was the extermination of the dwarf. If you met the latter you might rely with cheerful confidence upon seeing the ferocious brute in eager pursuit of him in less than a minute. No sooner would Juniper fairly accost you, looking timidly over his shoulder the while, than the raging savage would leap out of some contiguous jungle and make after him like a locomotive engine too late for the train. ”

“ The fairy and her hunter lover had frequent opportunities of meeting in secret, until some evil-disposed sister fairy divulged Brianag’s—for that was the fairy’s name—imprudent and unfairy-like conduct to the powerful fairy prince Aërlunn, who was himself over head and ears in love with the beautiful Brianag, though she gave him no encouragement at all; on the contrary, she flatly told him that, great and powerful as he was, she did not love him in the least, and would have nothing to do with him. ”

“ We may conjecture that these holy fires were merely survivals of the perpetual fires which in pagan |St. Brigit’s fire perhaps fed with oak-wood.| times had burned in honour of Brigit. The view that Brigit was a fire-goddess is confirmed by the observation that in the Christian calendar her festival falls the day before Candlemas, and the customs observed at that season by Celtic peasantry seem to prove that she was a goddess of the crops as well as of fire. ”

“ And it was angels that baptized her and that gave her the name of Brigit, that is a Fiery Arrow. She grew up to be a serving girl the same as her mother. And all the food she used was the milk of a white red-eared cow that was set apart for her by a druid. And everything she put her hand to used to increase, and it was she wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland, and she put the white threads in the loom that have a power of healing in them to this day. She bettered the sheep and she satisfied the birds and she fed the poor. ”