213 



FLORAL CUSTOMS, SUPERSTITIONS, AND 

 HISTORIES. 



•'Seemed all the rest in beauty to excel, 

 Crowned with a rosie girlond, that right well 



Did her beseeme ; and ever as the crew 

 About her daunst, sweet flowers that fair did smell, 

 And fragrant odours they upon her threw." 



Fairie Quesk. 



The real history of a nation — the history of its character — may always 

 be better read in its popular customs than in chronicles of its wars, 

 or chronologies of its kings. There is a peculiar character in all old 

 English customs — a greenness, a sunny freshness, a vitality and 

 energy, a character speaking of green fields and flowers, of life and 

 beauty. We are indebted for much of this to our Saxon ancestors. 

 The Saxons were a rural people. Their language and their habits 

 had a verdurous freshness, an odour of new-mown hay. There is a 

 vigour in all the Anglo-Saxon literature, peculiar to itself, from glo- 

 rious old Chaucer, who drank inspiration from the " dayseyes " beneath 

 the oaks at Castle Donnington, down to William Cobbett, the last 

 writer of Saxon. 



The reason is, that before men acquire the vices and evil tendencies 

 which are deemed marks of civilisation, they live nearer to nature. 

 There is a closer bond of sympathy between them and the fields and 

 woods. But rural customs, breathing, as they do, a language full of 

 deep meaning, are suffered to die away, and are replaced by the vices 

 and iniquities of an artificial existence, and these at last come to be 

 mistaken for civilisation. 



" The mute expressions of sweet nature's voices 

 Are drowned amid the turmoil of life's noises, 

 Where thoughts of fear and darkness come unbidden, 

 And love, and hope, are unto silence chidden." 



H. G. Adams. 



So much has been said and sung of flowers in all climes and all ages, 

 that the subject is rife with innumerable associations. In ancient 



