In the green Black Country
SPRING has definitely come to the Black Country, as these pictures from regular Bugle contributor Richard Pursehouse demonstrate.
Our main photograph is of a fine crop of bluebells (Hyacinthoides nonscripta) at Cannock Chase. These flowers are now in bloom in woodlands across the Black Country and there are always fine displays of these delicate flowers at the Wrens Nest and Saltwells Woods in Dudley.
Like all flowers, there is much traditional folklore attached to bluebells.
Folk names include the “wild hyacinth” and “Granfer Griggles” and Victorian folklorists maintained that bluebells blossomed on St George’s Day. In flower arrangements they symbolise constancy, humility and gratitude.
They are associated with fairies – the bells ring to summon fairies to their gatherings, but if a human were to hear them chime they will meet a wicked fairy and die soon after. Children that pick bluebells in the woods will be taken by the fairies and never seen again.
A garland of bluebells placed around a person’s neck compels them to tell the truth but if you are able to turn a bluebell inside-out without tearing it, you are sure to find your true love.
The starchy sap of the bluebell bulb was used in times past as a glue to fix feathers to arrows.
Richard’s other pictures are of that perennially popular visitor to our gardens, the robin (Erithacus rubecula).
Originally named the ruddock or redbreast, it acquired its new name in Tudor times, when it was popular to give birds personal names – Robin Redbreast, Jenny Wren, Tom Tit, and the like – but it was only the robin that had its name changed permanently.
The robin’s breast it not really red but more of an orange colour but that word did not enter English until the 13th century, when it referred to the fruit. It was first recorded as a colour in the early 1500s.
For all their popularity, robins are often associated with death in folklore. If a robin entered a house in any month of the year accept November, the visit heralded a death in the household. Along similar lines, if a robin flew into a church and sang inside it, then a member of the congregation was sure to die.
This robin seems to disagree – Richard’s second picture caught the bird as it was shaking its head.