Bluebells
Bluebells carry warnings in British and Irish lore: picking them was unlucky in parts of Scotland, taking them indoors was unlucky from Sussex to Sligo, and a ringing bluebell was said to summon a bad fairy.
What it may mean
A bluebell wood looks as if it appeared overnight, a haze of blue under the new leaves for a few weeks of spring. In fact it is slow work. A bluebell seed takes at least five years to become a bulb, so a dense carpet can be decades in the making, and trampling or digging sets it back for years. Folk warnings arrived at the same place by another road. In parts of Scotland people held plucking bluebells unlucky, and families from East Sussex to County Sligo kept them out of the house. Today British law protects the wild plant from being dug up. At the edge of such a wood, it is worth thinking about which slow-grown things around you are easiest to spoil.
Depending on how you saw it
Hearing one ring
A British woodland charity describes an old belief that if you hear a bluebell ring, a bad fairy will visit and you will die not long after, and that picking one leaves you led astray by fairies. Has an imagined sound ever kept you away from a place?
Two grandmothers, five miles apart
In Staffordshire, a contributor's grandmother thought bluebells unlucky in the house, while a mother-in-law living five miles away saw nothing wrong with them. Which rule changes completely a short drive from your home?
Sap used as glue
Children once used bluebell sap as glue, a visitor to the Natural History Museum in London remembered. What ordinary use did you find for something others saw only as pretty?
Spanish bluebells in the garden
Spanish bluebells stand upright with flowers all around the stem, while the native kind droops to one side, and in gardens the two often cross. Which newcomer in your life has changed an old pattern without much fuss?
Why it happens in nature
The native bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, flowers from mid-April to late May in woodland, before the tree canopy fully closes and shades the ground. A seed takes at least five years to grow into a bulb. In Britain the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it illegal to dig up the plant or its bulbs in the countryside, and trade in wild bulbs and seed has been banned since 1998.
What folk beliefs say
Scotland
Plucking bluebells was called unlucky in some parts of Scotland, Daniels and Stevans wrote.
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. 771. View the page
Britain
Bluebell woods were believed to be woven with fairy enchantments: hearing a bluebell ring foretold a visit from a bad fairy and death not long after, and picking one could leave you led astray by fairies, the Woodland Trust notes.
Source: Woodland Trust, Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) (n.d.), www.woodlandtrust.org.uk. View the page
Ireland (Sligo)
In Ballymote, County Sligo, a contributor said in 1994 that it is unlucky to take the bluebell into your house.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Bluebell (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
England (East Sussex)
A contributor from Five Ashes, East Sussex, recalled in 1983 that her grandmother, who died in 1969, would not have bluebells in the house.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Bluebell (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
England (Staffordshire)
In Rolleston-on-Dove, a contributor's grandmother held it unlucky to bring bluebells into the house, though her mother-in-law, five miles away, did not share the belief.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Bluebell (Plant-Lore archive) (n.d.), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
To reflect on
What around you took years to grow and needs nothing more from you than to be left alone?