OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN 



the Lydian hero Tylon, where a serpent is the 

 intermediary and serpents are often credited 

 with a knowledge of life-giving plants, refer- 

 ence is made to a golden flower. 1 This may 

 possibly be connected with the idea of the life- 

 giving power of the god, since the golden flower 

 is dedicated to Zeus. Professor J. G. Frazer 

 thinks that a red flower may perhaps have been 

 chosen to suggest a flow of blood an infusion 

 of fresh life into the veins of the dead. It is 

 also possible that red and yellow may have been 

 interchangeable terms, just as they are to-day 

 amongst the Italian peasantry. The choice of 

 colour may, however, have been derived from 

 the red anemone, which is said to have sprung 

 from the blood of Adonis, with whom love and 

 life are traditionally associated. There are some, 

 on the other hand, who ascribe to the story a 

 deep spiritual .meaning. With them it is not 

 the flower itself which brings about resurrection 

 from apparent death, but the spiritual truth of 

 which the flower is but the outward symbol. 

 It may be that the red blossom represents the 

 joys of earth which Eliduc's wife voluntarily 

 renounces, and which, surrendered to her rival, 

 in time became like a burning thing whose fiery 

 touch awakens to life the sleeping conscience. 

 In a story .such as this, which has evidently 

 travelled far and wide before we find it in 

 England in the eleventh century, it is possible 

 that any or all of these surmises may be true. 



1 J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attls, Osiris, p. 98. 

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