A Victorian Flower Dictionary - Mandy Kirkby [19]
The lily of the valley grows wild in most European countries, but is more commonly found in the cooler north. In pagan times it was considered the special flower of Ostara, the Norse goddess of the dawn. Its botanical name, Convallaria majalis, derives from the Latin for ‘valley’ (reflecting its lowland habitat) and ‘belonging to May’.
In Britain the flower is associated with Whitsunday, or Pentecost, the celebration of the return of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. Its secular counterpart was the national holiday on Whit Monday, when many a Victorian would take off on a ‘lily picnic’ to gather the flowers in the local woods, followed by dancing and refreshments. Participants in the spring festival held each May in Helston, Cornwall, called the Furry (or Flora) Dance, wore the lily of the valley as a sprig on a gentleman’s lapel or upside-down on a lady’s dress.
from THE SHEPHERD’S CALENDAR
The stooping lilies of the valley,
That love with shades and dews to dally,
And bending droop on slender threads,
With broad hood-leaves above their heads,
Like white-robed maids, in summer hours,
Beneath umbrellas shunning showers.
JOHN CLARE
Accompanied by white lilies and white rosebuds, lily of the valley made a joyous summer bouquet. Or it could be cut and brought indoors from the garden for its beautiful fragrance, or to adorn the Lady chapel of a church. It was sometimes called Lady’s tears, its drooping flowers representing the tears Mary shed at the cross. It was a common flower on greetings postcards; and playing-cards depicting wild flowers, very popular with flower-minded young ladies, invariably included the lily of the valley.
In France the lily of the valley is called muguet, and is the symbol of May Day, la Fête de muguet, when sweethearts would present each other with sprigs of the flower. The tradition is said to have originated with King Charles IX, who was once given a bunch of lily of the valley as a token of luck and prosperity for the coming year. He found it such a delightful idea that he gave this floral offering to the ladies of his court every year. The tradition still continues, and every May Day the French present each other with bunches and pots of lily of the valley.
MARIGOLD
Grief
The marigold is a bright and cheerful-looking flower, its colour a warm orange or golden yellow, its form open and honest, and yet its meaning is a sad one. But observe the marigold closely and the reason is clear. The flower remains open only as long as the sun is shining; cloudy skies and the day’s end cause it to shut tight and its head to droop in downcast mood. Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale described it as ‘the marigold that goes to bed with the sun,/And with him rises weeping’, such is the closing of the flower and its dew-drenched opening after the sun rises. Sadness and distress, the companions of grief, are signified by the marigold.
European gardeners have known this flower since the thirteenth century and the everyday variety, the pot marigold, was grown for its general healing properties, as a soother of many ills. Aztec marigolds from the Americas, sometimes called African or French marigolds, brought more choice to the Victorian garden, where the flower was admired for its hot colour and lengthy growing period.
In the language of flowers, the melancholy aspect of the marigold could be tempered with other blooms. Combined with roses, it could express the bitter sweets and pleasant pains of love; together with pansies it told the recipient, ‘I am thinking of you in your time of distress’; with lily of the valley, ‘You will be happy again, rest assured.’
A lovely image of the sad marigold appears in J. J. Grandville’s 1847 Les Fleurs Animées, a book of playful pictorial fantasies based on the notion that the flowers have left the garden and adopted human form. The marigold has metamorphosed into a young woman, her dress a display of green leaves,