History in Flowers

May Pole The Tale of the Tulip  The Narcissus Myth
	May Pole England: The festivals begun in Italy reached their height in England during the Middle Ages. On the first day of May, English villagers awakened at daybreak to roam the countryside gathering blossoming flowers and branches. A towering maypole was set up on the village green. This pole, usually made of the trunk of a tall birch tree, was decorated with bright field flowers. The villagers then danced and sang around the maypole, accompanied by a piper. Usually the Morris dance was performed by dancers wearing bells on their colorful costumes. Often the fairest maiden of the village was chosen queen of the May. Sometimes a May king was also chosen. These two led the village dancers and ruled over the festivities. In Elizabethan times, the king and queen were called Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Maypoles were usually set up for the day in small towns, but in London and the larger towns they were erected permanently. They were considered heathen eyesores by the Puritans. May Day festivals became so gay and wild that the Puritans were able to force the government to forbid them. They soon sprang up again, however, and still continue in many English villages. Today in London children go from house to house bringing flowers in return for pennies. After the pennies are collected, they are thrown into a wishing well. Special wishes are made with hopes they will be granted. The pennies are later collected and given to different charitable organizations. France: Since the French considered the month of May to be sacred to the Virgin Mary, they enshrined young girls as May queens in their churches and May queens led processions in honor of the Virgin. Cows also play important roles in French May Day festivals, and bunches of flowers are tied and draped around their tails as they are led in parades. Everyone tries to touch the cows because it is believed to be good luck. On May Day morning, everyone drinks milk still warm from the milking to assure good luck during the year. Germany: German boys often secretly plant May trees in front of the windows of their sweethearts.
	The Tale of the Tulip  A sturdy Persian youth named Farhad, a prince some say, was deeply in love with the fair maid Shirin. One day, word reached him (false word as it tragically turned out) that his beloved had been killed. Gripped by unbearable grief, he mounted his favorite horse and galloped over a cliff to his death. From his numerous wounds droplets of blood trickled onto the ground. From each drop of blood a scarlet tulip sprang, a symbol of his perfect love. So it was that in ancient Persia the red tulip became a symbol of passionate love. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire were the first culture to celebrate the beauty of the tulip and to begin to cultivate and hybridize the flower. The tulip remains the national flower of modern Turkey. In long-ago times, tulips were symbols of wealth and power. The sultans held great tulip festivals, with multi-colored lanterns, exotic birds and lavish arrangements of exquisite tulips decorating the their royal courtyards. One sultan spent so much money on his annual tulip festivals that the expenditures were brought out as charges in his impeachment trial. He is the first in recorded history who can truly be said to have "lost his head" over tulips.
	The Narcissus Myth  Most Americans know narcissi as daffodils, though in the South they are traditionally called jonquils. In actual fact, all daffodils and jonquils are narcissi — but only some narcissi are daffodils and only a few are jonquils. But that's another story. What matters is that all are extremely beautiful and that has a bearing on how the Greeks thought these lovely flowers came to be. According to Greek myth, a nubile young wood nymph named Echo spied young Narcissus walking in the woods. Narcissus was blessed with an indescribable beauty bestowed upon him by the gods. His gift came with one caveat: his beauty and youth would never fade, provided he never looked upon his own reflection. Poor Echo fell hopelessly in love with Narcissus. He, the self-absorbed brute, did not return her interest. She loved so deeply, and pined for him so strongly, that she was literally consumed by love, until all that was left of her was her voice. The goddess Nemesis decided to get even. She led the vain and unsuspecting young man to a shimmering lake. There, dazzled by his own reflected beauty, he was unable to turn away. Hopelessly in love with himself, he too was consumed by passion and faded away. The gods, however, thinking that Nemesis might have played a bit rough, decided to commute his sentence to eternity as a flower. In the language of flowers, the narcissus stands for vanity and egoism. In psychoanalysis, narcissism is, of course, excessive self-love.

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