More About The Fairy Garland and Certificate



The Certificate design (by Sam Symonds, Sam@ToolboxMarketing.co.uk) is inspired by the Fairy Garland of wild flowers.

Throughout ancient British tradition flowers adorned the heads of young girls, women and fairies on their May Day awakening, echoed in Maypole dancing.

“Farm chemicals and development have wiped out many once common flowers from fields and hedgerows” says Fairyland Trust Coordinator Sarah Wise “That’s why we now run Fairy Fairs and send out travelling workshops where children can rekindle these traditions and learn about nature, and why we aim to set up new Fairylands, recreating lost wildlife habitats. These Fairy Queens will give real help to conservation, while honouring an almost lost traditions”.

If Fairy Queen-making proves popular, the Trust plans to offer other Honours to help conservation in future. People will also be able to buy Honours, and do Maypole Dancing and other activities at the next Fairy Fair, 28/9 May at Narborough Hall, near Swaffham in Norfolk. The flowers of the Fairy Garland traditionally included any flowers, trees and mushrooms with magical fairy associations. Some of these, such as St John’s Wort, had particular midsummer associations.

The flowers in the Certificate are those which inspire the design of the spring edition of the Trust’s Fairy Crowns.

Red campion ­ “fairies flower” in Isle of Man; said to be a sign of a fairy place where growing with early purple orchid (also indication of ancient woodland)

Dandelion ­ said to contain the spirit of fairies, dandelion clocks transport fairies (you get a wish by blowing a seed away)

Bluebell ­ bad luck to pick them; ring to call fairies to midnight revels and at fairy festivals

Wood sorrel - ‘fairy bells’ in Wales, sacred to Druids and Celts, inspired Celtic Knotwork, three-part leaves used by St Patrick to symbolise Holy Trinity, fairies said to shelter in the petals, which close up in rain

Blackthorn - traditionally Maypoles were topped by blackthorn, above garlands of hawthorn. Wishing wands of blackthorn were also used to divine the future and make wishes during the May Beltane celebrations.

Herb Robert ­ aqua “pucks needles” (refers to seedpod), and refers to Robin Good fellow (fairy = Puck = Robin Hood?)

Stichtwort ­ not to be gathered if you were to avoid being fairy-led (disappearing into fairyland for a night, maybe not coming back in human time for years)

Hawthorn - traditionally the tree of the Fairy Queen. It is said that fairies and spirits met under the hawthorn, a gateway to their world.

Elderflower ­ a belief originating in Denmark is that a person standing under an elder-bush at twelve o clock on midsummer will see the king of the fairies go by with all his train; elves live in it and should be consulted before any elder is cut

Rowan - one of the most magical of all trees, protecting against enchantment and also favoured by winter thrushes for its orange-red berries. The original Christmas tree.

Plantlife (www.plantlife.org.uk) says: ‘Over the last century human activity has forced an incalculable number of species to the verge of extinction. Current estimates put the rate of loss as high as one plant per county every two years …. Vast tracts of Britain's most cherished wild-plant habitats have been destroyed over the last 50 years: 98% of wild-flower meadows, 75% of open heaths, 96% of open peat bogs, and 190,000 miles of hedgerows’.

Other flowers likely to have featured in spring Fairy Garlands include cowslip. Much declined: between the 1980s and 1990s it was lost from 80% of meadows even in the Peak District National Park. (http://peakdistrict.vianw.co.uk/pubs/hmp/hmplosses.pdf)

Cowslip was also known as ‘fairycup’, as fairies are supposed to like nestling in the drooping bell of cowslip flowers. Under the moon, fairy music emanated from cowslip bells. They are also supposed to reveal fairy gold buried nearby. Shakespeare’s Ariel, the fairy in The Tempest was often to be found lying in a cowslip’s bell (V.1.88):

‘Where the bee sucks, there suck I. In a cowslip’s bell I lie. There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly after summer merrily’

And in a Midsummer Night’s Dream (II.i.10):

‘The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours. I must go seek some dewdrops here; And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.