^ The ^Afternoon of the Year fj£ 



Saint Catherine is almost invariably represented with 

 a lily, and the lily is also the symbol of the austere St. 

 Dominic. One recalls also the words of the ninth century 

 monk and garden-lover, Walafred Strabo. 



' Who can describe the exceeding whiteness of the lily ? 

 The rose, it should be crowned with pearls of Arabis and 

 Lydian gold. Better and sweeter are these flowers than 

 all other plants and rightly called the flower of flowers. 



' Yes, roses and lilies, the one for virginity with no 

 sordid toil, no warmth of love, but the glow of their own 

 sweet scent, which spreads further than the rival roses. 

 . . . Therefore roses and lilies for our church, one for 

 the martyrs' blood, the other for the symbol in his hand. 

 Pluck them, O maiden, roses for war and lilies for peace, 

 and think of that Flower of the stem of Jesse. Lilies His 

 words were, and the hallowed acts of His pleasant life, 

 but His death redyed the roses.' 



Who can say when these lilies were first grown in 

 England ? For all we know, it may have been before even 

 the Roman occupation. Druid colleges in these islands 

 were so famous that youths were sent to them from all 

 parts of the Continent, and many plants which we ascribe 

 to Roman days may well have been introduced long 

 before. The Madonna lily is a native of Southern 

 Europe, Palestine, Turkey, and the Caucasus. Our 

 Anglo-Saxon ancestors loved it for its beauty, and valued 

 it for its wound-healing qualities. In an eleventh- 

 century Saxon herbal there is a drawing of the whole 

 plant with the stamens standing out beyond the petals 

 so^that they look like rays of light emanating from the 

 flowers and as it were crowning them. In a miniature in 

 the Benedictional of Saint Ethelwold of Winchester 



165 



