Legend of the Blooms

Posted by hardinero007 | Added on : June 30, 2010 11:57am | Last edited: June 30, 2010 11:58am | Viewed 2800 times | 0 Comments

Our gardens are full of history and the story of flowers is a part of the story of mankind. Flowers are woven into the fabric of religion, mythology, and folklore of every land and generation.

People painted them on their ancient cave walls and glorified them in myths. Since the earliest days of mankind, flowers have served as an inspiration to poets and painters. Some flowers served as food and more often as medicine.

They were used in heraldry and reigned as symbols representing many different religious and political ideals.

 We use flowers to express our feelings and enhance our celebrations We are grateful that flowers inhabit our world and are moved by the pageantry of their history.

Flowers appeal to all of us, bringing us beauty and fragrance. They brighten our lives and thrill our senses.

Of all flowers, the rose is perhaps the most symbolic, often representing purity, perfection, love or marriage, while its essence is well used in potions and cosmetics.

The Forget-Me-Not flower is a favorite wild flower of many; however, this small, blue flower has been a symbol of both love and hope, adopted by many organizations. A European legend tells of a German knight who walked along a river bank with his lady. When the knight bent down to pick some pretty blue flowers, his heavy armour made him fall into the river. As he was drowning, he threw the bunch of flowers onto the bank and shouted "forget-me-not". Thereafter, the plant became associated with true love and was sometimes worn in the Middle Ages as a sign of faithfulness.

Deriving from the Greek word for wind, anemos, the anemone is sometimes known as the 'windflower', symbolising the fleeting nature of life. According to Greek myth, the anemone came from Adonis' blood and can represent death, although in Christianity it is believed to be the blood of saints. In Scotland and Denmark, the anemone is thought to be the bed of the fairy that is protected by its petals.

There is a legend that St Peter dropped the keys to Heaven when he discovered that a duplicate set had been made. It was on the spot where the fallen keys landed that there grew up the first cowslips. In parts of England their cluster of yellow flowers are known as ‘bunch of keys’.

The field poppy is sometimes called the corn rose as Ceres, goddess of corn, wore a wreath of field poppies. The poppy petal was once used as a test of faithfulness. The petal is put in the palm of the hand and struck with the fist; if it makes a snapping sound the loved one is faithful. It is more often associated with Remembrance Day, commemorating the fallen of WWI.

According to an old superstition, if honeysuckle is taken into a house then a wedding will follow. If a girl places this fragrant flower in her bedroom, she will dream of love, and in France it was given to a loved one to symbolise their union.

Cultivated for over 500 years, lily of the valley is known as the flower of Ostara, Norse goddess of springtime and it often symbolises new life. The white flowers were meant to represent purity, yet some people believe it is unlucky and that anyone planting it will die within a year.

The pansy is mostly associated with love, being sacred to St Valentine, and is sometimes known as 'heartsease' or 'love-in-idleness'. If used to cover the eyes of someone while asleep, the dreamer may fall in love with the first person they see. In Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon, king of the fairies, squeezed 'heartsease' into Titania's eyes so that she fell in love with Bottom who was dressed as an ass.

Sometimes known as the 'snow-piercer' or 'the fair maid of February', bunches of snowdrops used to be worn by village maidens as a symbol of purity. Some say they should never be brought into the house of a sick person as they could prove fatal. Yet others say that a bunch of snowdrops on a kitchen windowsill will purify the house.