Flora
On Saturday I found a £10 note on a bus and spent it on roses and strawberries. Walpurgis Night and Beltane are approaching and this was the Roman festival of Flora, ‘a goddess decked with garlands of a thousand varied flowers’ (Ovid). Pagans know how to party and the Floralia went on for six days with games, theatre, dancing and revelry. Perhaps this is partly why, as a busy urban person, I find them easier to honour than traditional British ones. On May Day the best I can do is a walk through park and graveyard, en route to work. Hopefully, I’ll bring home a tiny cutting of hawthorn for my altar. Sadly, I won’t be flying around on my broomstick. I won’t be out in the wild wood but can get to the managed ones of Kew, Kenwood and Holland Park. A wood in the middle of the city has it’s own magic… especially when filled with bluebells and spring birdsong.
The cult of Flora was introduced to Britain by the Romans and still reverberates through the month. When I was at junior school we erected and danced around a Maypole, weaving coloured ribbons. The May Queen has a special poignancy as my grandfather used to read me the Tennyson poem, omitting the final verses where the narrator dies. It’s unlucky to cut Hawthorn, except on May Day; the trees were associated with the fairies, being equally potent at warding them off. In Ireland lone thorn trees were known to be fairy meeting places and avoided. In 1968, in Donegal, a new road was rerouted to avoid disturbing a tree and invoking fairy anger. But, picked at the right time, a sprig of hawthorn could protect family, home and crops.
On the estate where I live the cherry blossom has finished on the trees but still swirls round in the wind and fills every gutter and corner. It’s impossible not to bring it in and I find petals in every room. The spirit of the wild wood lives on.
On Saturday I found a £10 note on a bus and spent it on roses and strawberries. Walpurgis Night and Beltane are approaching and this was the Roman festival of Flora, ‘a goddess decked with garlands of a thousand varied flowers’ (Ovid). Pagans know how to party and the Floralia went on for six days with games, theatre, dancing and revelry. Perhaps this is partly why, as a busy urban person, I find them easier to honour than traditional British ones. On May Day the best I can do is a walk through park and graveyard, en route to work. Hopefully, I’ll bring home a tiny cutting of hawthorn for my altar. Sadly, I won’t be flying around on my broomstick. I won’t be out in the wild wood but can get to the managed ones of Kew, Kenwood and Holland Park. A wood in the middle of the city has it’s own magic… especially when filled with bluebells and spring birdsong.
The cult of Flora was introduced to Britain by the Romans and still reverberates through the month. When I was at junior school we erected and danced around a Maypole, weaving coloured ribbons. The May Queen has a special poignancy as my grandfather used to read me the Tennyson poem, omitting the final verses where the narrator dies. It’s unlucky to cut Hawthorn, except on May Day; the trees were associated with the fairies, being equally potent at warding them off. In Ireland lone thorn trees were known to be fairy meeting places and avoided. In 1968, in Donegal, a new road was rerouted to avoid disturbing a tree and invoking fairy anger. But, picked at the right time, a sprig of hawthorn could protect family, home and crops.
On the estate where I live the cherry blossom has finished on the trees but still swirls round in the wind and fills every gutter and corner. It’s impossible not to bring it in and I find petals in every room. The spirit of the wild wood lives on.