At 15.59 18/12/97 +1200, you wrote:
> If I was correct with my last posting that Holly was an English
>representation of the thorns at the passion, and if it is true that the red
>of the berrys were representative of the blood of Christ, one wonders why
>"The Holly and The Ivy" is a Christmas carol when Easter would appear to be
>more appropriate. Is it just that Holly doesn't grow in spring ?
>
Holy and Ivy debates are Celtic, and about male and female, the Christian
meanings being read into the debate later, especially lovely in _Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight_. In Celtic culture men and women were far more equal
than in Anglo-Saxon culture.>
>
>
____
Julia Bolton Holloway, [log in to unmask]
Hermit of the Holy Family
via del Partigiano 16, Montebeni, 50014 FIESOLE, ITALY
http://members.aol.com/juliansite/Juliansite.htm
'For I understood that we may laugh, in comforting of ourself and joying in
God, for the fiend is overcome'. Julian of Norwich, _Showings_, Paris
Manuscript, fol. 28
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