plants
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♫♫ “Oh, the holly blooms in summer, as white as any snow….”♫♫
Celtic myths, Christmas carols, crafts, crown of thorns, dioecious, duke of argyll, fairies, foretelling, Halloween, holly, James II holly, Midsummer Day, New Year, Norse gods, plants, preston candover, robins, Roman culture, Saturnalia, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Holly and the Ivy, thor, thunderToday, 24 July, is my granddaughter’s birthday, and her name is Holly. Why was she given that particular name? Because her existence was first anticipated at Christmas. So my Holly is linked to both Christmas and Summer. She, like the holly in the above photograph, first actually bloomed at the height of summer. And her…
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For the purposes of this article, the sweet lady in question is Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III of England. She was very interested in gardens and in acquiring new flowers. Perhaps she was influenced by her French mother, Joan of Valois, Countess of Hainault, who in around 1340 sent some cuttings of…
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Well, my title is guesswork, of course, but surely Broom is a reference to Plantagenet (a name taken from planta genista, the Latin for the yellow broom flower). The story (the first in a series by author Andrew Beattie) is about the boys in the Tower, but is Jack Broom one of them? Or is…
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Well, I can’t believe poinsettias, pretty as they are, ever featured in medieval European Christmas festivities! Any more than turkeys, roast potatoes, cranberries, chocolate and other such delights that are due entirely to the New World. The above picture is from this article about the pagan origins of Christmas, and for all its New World…
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While looking in A Dictionary of Superstitions, edited by Iona and Moira Tatem, specifically for anything concerning Midsummer traditions, I found one that involved the orpine/sedum plant. The following passage was taken from Brand, Antiquities I 263-4, 1777:- “….on 22nd January, 1801, a small gold ring….was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries….It had been found….in…
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Have you ever asked yourself how people washed and perfume themselves in Medieval time? And what about the smart and noble Plantagenets? Was there a difference between rich and poor people? You will be surprised to discover that Mediaeval people were cleaner than we can imagine and they smelled good. As you can imagine, hygienic…
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My recent research has taken me into the realm of medieval plants, remedies, myths and legends. It’s fascinating, and I could easily become too engaged by it all, to the detriment of the things that led me to it in the first place. Until two days ago I don’t think I had ever seen the…
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“….in the Mediterranean there grows a…murderous plant called the mandrake. Its roots can look bizarrely like a human body, and legend holds that it can even come in male and female form. It’s said to spring from the dripping fat and blood…of a hanged man. Dare pull it from the earth and it lets…
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Yet another target for the Cairo dwellers
Admiral Thomas Seymour, Antoine de Noaillles, Chris Skidmore, Christine Hartweg, denialists, Edward II, Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset, Edward VI, executions, flowers, French embassy, Henri II, Hester Chapman, Isabella de Valois, Jacqueline Reiter, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, John Earl of Chatham, Kathryn Warner, Lord High Admiral, Lord Protector of the Realm, National Archives, Paul Doherty, plants, Richard III, VictoriaLast autumn, we reblogged posts to illustrate that the denialists of the history world, quite apart from their antics with respect to Richard III, quoted an obviously non-existent part of a document about Edward II and cited a book on botany, with reference to John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, that he couldn’t have owned…
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http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/default.htm While going through some of my very large list of Favourites from my days of Regency writing, I came upon a site that I think will be of interest to those devoted to the mediaeval period. And writers concerned with that period, because let’s face it, if we need to bump a character off,…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 