Cheshire children are forbidden to bring it in, the belief being that their mother will die if they did (Hole.

It 'brought illness, etc.,' with it, according to Devonshire belief, and in Somerset it may cause death in the house into which the blossom is brought (Elworthy). It is particularly unlucky to bring indoors, perhaps because of the belief that Jesus was crowned with these thorns. HAWTHORN, too, was unlucky, in spite of its being a sacred tree and of offering its protection against witches. There was also a belief there that if you fell asleep under one you would never wake up (Garis). Guernsey belief had it that whoever planted a row of them ran the risk of losing the property, or letting it pass from the rightful heir to a younger branch of the family. PINE trees were looked on as unlucky in the Channel Isles. Perhaps it is one of the cases of the man's life going into a tree which is very long-living. Anyone who plants one will have a short life (Canziani), or, as in Portugal, he would die when the tree attains his own girth (Gallop). WALNUT trees are unlucky in some areas, the Abruzzi, in Italy, for instance. Similarly in Sicily, the mistrust lies in the belief that Judas hanged himself on one. That is why the branches break off so easily, particularly on St John's Day, when anyone who climbs the tree risks a dangerous fall. Another aspect of this mistrust of a fig tree comes from the belief in the south of France that John the Baptist was beheaded under one. On the island of Chios they say that the shadows of both fig and hazel are 'heavy', so it is not good to sleep under either of them (Argenti & Rose). In Greek folklore, people have a fear of sleeping under a FIG tree.

Unlucky Plants by Roy Vickery