Harbingers of spring that make us dance with delight

THERE THEY are, clumps of green spikes pushing with grim determination through the hard earth and frost-etched leaf mould.

Sadly, though, there is no sign of these snowdrop shoots donning their beautiful pearl earrings as they fight their way into a frigid January day above the Aire Valley.

But elsewhere in Yorkshire, they are becoming a sight to gladden the heart, and RHS Harlow Carr at Harrogate has had some lovely displays of them for more than a fortnight.

The churchyard at Driffield is similarly brightened by these classic harbingers of spring, and an elderly couple I encountered this week while following a stretch of the Doorstep Walk through the Rother Valley Country Park, near Sheffield, reported seeing them on the woodland fringes.

Social media is awash with photos from elsewhere in the country.

I loved a tweet from one lady botanist who confessed to seeing her first snowdrops of the year then dancing around while singing “here comes the nivalis” (the scientific name is Galanthus nivalis) to the tune of “here comes the hotstepper”.

Along with seeing the first swallow and hearing the first cuckoo, the sighting of snowdrops is one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the countryside.

Of course, one clump of snowdrops does not make a spring.

Ahead of us lies the so-called Buchan Cold Spell of February 7 to 14, which historical analysis has shown can usher in the most savage bite of the whole winter.

Indeed, the nature diarist and TV presenter Kenneth Allsop once wrote of the snowdrop: “It’s hard to credit that a flower so chastely white can be so dyed in deceit.”

That being the case, their accomplices are surely the pale yellow lambs-tails of catkins now dangling in profusion from hazel trees, like those I found along the track known as Hall Lane near Leathley in Wharfedale last week.

Last year, hazel catkins were also out in the second week of January when a hefty blizzard blew in to dispense our illusions that spring was on the way.

Not for nothing were snowdrops given the old name of “snow-piercers” a century ago, but we forgive this annual hoax because we know that while there might be more snowflakes, the snowdrops – and those lambs-tails – always win in the end.

According to Allsop, snowdrops were brought here by monks from France in the 15th century. It seems the flowers were cultivated in old cloister gardens in order to adorn the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2 – better known as Candlemas.

There are records of them growing around monastic ruins like the Cistercian abbey at Roche near Rotherham and the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace on the edge of the North York Moors.

For many years, each February a Snowdrop Festival has been held in the grounds of St Mary’s Church at Kirk Bramwith, outside Doncaster.