A single daffodil
A single daffodil carried into the house when the first ones appear in spring was thought very unlucky in Devon, and Manx households kept daffodils out until the goslings hatched.
What it may mean
One daffodil says something a bunch does not. In Devon, carrying single daffodils indoors when the first ones appeared in spring was considered very unlucky. Elsewhere a single flower was chosen on purpose. One daffodil was paid each year as the rent for untenanted lands on the Isles of Scilly, according to a record in a plant-lore archive, and in Pimperne, Dorset, schoolchildren once laid a single daffodil on each grave of the Australian soldiers buried there after the 1918 influenza. A lone flower draws the eye to whoever placed it.
Depending on how you saw it
Before the goslings hatch
A Manx informant from the Port St Mary area warned against taking daffodils into the house before the goslings hatched, and in the Welsh parish of Castle Caereinion a daffodil brought in while a goose sat on eggs would leave them unhatched. Which fragile thing at home do you guard with a rule others find odd?
Flowers for Flowering Sunday
Before Palm Sunday, wild daffodils from Eardisley in Herefordshire were sold at Hay-on-Wye market for what Welsh families called Flowering Sunday, when graves were dressed with bunches of them. How do you mark the people you have lost when spring returns?
Why it happens in nature
The wild daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, flowers in early spring around Lent, which gave it the old name Lent lily. It grows from a bulb that stores food through summer, so it can flower before trees come into leaf. All parts of daffodils are poisonous if eaten.
What folk beliefs say
England (Devon)
In Devonshire, Daniels and Stevans recorded, it was considered very unlucky to carry single daffodils into a house when they first appeared in spring, as a sign of death.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 779. View the page
Wales (Montgomeryshire)
A curious superstition in Castle Caereinion parish, the same encyclopedia says, held that if a daffodil is brought into a house where a goose is sitting, nothing will come of the eggs.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 779. View the page
Isle of Man
A Manx informant from the Port St Mary and Cregneash area said in 1982 that it is unlucky to take daffodils into the house before the goslings are hatched.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Daffodil (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
England (Isles of Scilly)
On the Isles of Scilly, a contributor recorded in 1992, one daffodil was paid each year as rent to Prince Charles for the untenanted lands of the islands.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Daffodil (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
England (Dorset)
In Pimperne, Dorset, a 1992 record says, local schoolchildren once laid a single daffodil each year on the graves of Australian soldiers who died in the 1918 influenza.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Daffodil (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
England and Wales (Herefordshire border)
Before Palm Sunday, a 1997 record says, wild daffodils from Eardisley were sold at Hay-on-Wye market and used to dress graves on what the Welsh called Flowering Sunday.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Daffodil (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
To reflect on
If you gave someone a single flower today, what would you want it to say?