Episode 1: Foxglove
The first ever episode of Flowers & Folklore will be all about the foxglove!
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Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Flowers and Folklore. I'm Sarah, a florist living in Glasgow in the UK. I run a business called Rook Botanics, which I started in 2020. I create flowers for funerals, weddings, I run lots of workshops, and I now host this podcast. I also write a newsletter called The Foibles of a Florist.
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You can find a link for it in the show notes. If you love flowers and folklore and odd floral facts, then you're in the right place. A quick note before we get started. I love reading and learning about flowers and the history and tales associated with them. There's so many different regional stories and so much lore,
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so what you may have heard or read may be different to what I talk about in the podcast. You're absolutely welcome to get in touch and let me know what you've heard. I'm always keen to learn more.
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If you stick around till the end of the show, then I'll share the best ways for you to get in touch. On with the show. For the first ever episode, I'm going to be telling you all about the foxglove. I really wanted to start with this flower because I feel like it's having such a moment right now.
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I went to Chelsea Flower Show this year for the first time ever and it felt like every show garden seemed to have at least one foxglove. I don't have my own garden. I live in a tenement in Glasgow, so I have access to a shared garden and it's pretty neglected and pretty gross.
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So I bought a couple of foxglove plugs from Chelsea, despite my love for flowers and obviously being a florist. I don't actually have a green thumb so I'll keep you posted as to whether they ever come around to flowering. And so that just cemented that this episode should be all about the foxglove.
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I first had the idea for this podcast over two years ago. I wrote the episode for bluebells and for snowdrops and I just got a bit scared to be honest and so I never got around to sharing the episodes. So I'm thrilled to be here but somewhat nervous. Before I dive into the symbolism,
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folklore and history of the foxglove, I'm going to give you five quick facts about the flower. Number one, the tallest foxglove ever recorded was over 11 feet. Number two, despite being extremely poisonous, the foxglove has been used in medicine, particularly for treating heart conditions.
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Number three, they are a very important source of nectar for bees and other pollinators. Number four, the foxglove self-seeds and spreads easily. Once the flower fades, its seed pods burst open and will scatter nearby. Number five, they tend to bloom from June through to September. And one bonus fact.
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In 2002, Plantlife conducted a public survey to assign flowers to each county. It seems like there's not enough flowers to go around because the foxglove is the county flower to four different counties. These include Argyll, which is in Scotland, the West Midlands and Leicestershire, which is in England, and Monmouthshire, which is in Wales.
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Okay, so let's get started. I've used loads of different books and websites for this episode, so I'll compile a whole list that you can find in the show notes. The botanical name for common foxglove is Digitalis purpurea, but it goes by so many names. According to a Countryfile article, the foxglove has more than 30 recorded names.
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There is no British wildflower that has more recorded names. Some of my favourite names were Fairy Fingers, Dead Man's Bells, Witch's Gloves, Throatwort, Scotch Mercury, Fairy Thimbles, Floppy Dock and Foxbell. There's also some overlap between the names for foxgloves and the names for bluebells.
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For example, I saw both bluebells and foxgloves referred to as witch's bells and fairy bells. And I can see how they ended up with similar names because they both have that bell-like flower. There's quite a lot of debate as to where the name foxglove comes from. There were some etymologists who suggested that it was originally folkglove which
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then turned into foxglove. The folk would have been referring to fae folk or fairies and there is a lot of folklore surrounding foxgloves and fairies so this could be possible. It could also come from the fact that it was named by a German botanist, Leonard Fuchs. Don't come for me if I've pronounced that wrong.
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But he was the one who named it Digitalis, which according to Wikipedia is the German vernacular name Fingerhut. As a literal translation, that means finger hat, but actually it means thimble in German. In terms of etymology, it seems that any relation between foxgloves and foxes, the animal, is quite dubious. They do coexist in the same habitat.
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Foxgloves grow well in disturbed ground and in wooded areas, which is obviously a similar habitat to where foxes are found. In the Victorian language of flowers, foxgloves symbolise riddles, secrets and insincerity. If you pair foxgloves with lavender, this can be used to warn a friend of an unfaithful love. Or if you pair foxgloves with hyacinths,
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you can use this to ask for forgiveness for divulging a secret which seems very specific. For anyone not aware of the Victorian language of flowers, also known as floriography, there will be some books in the show notes all about it, but I could also do a standalone episode if anyone would be interested.
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Two things immediately come to mind when I think of foxgloves, and those are The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck by Beatrix Potter and The Secret Garden. For those who need a quick refresher, Jemima Puddle Duck is the tale of a duck, obviously, who's not allowed to keep her eggs on the farm because she's not very good at
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sitting on them. So she plans to leave the farm so she can nest somewhere else. And on her journeys, she finds a charming gentleman who is a fox. And he tricks her because he obviously wants to eat the eggs and her. The day is saved by a lovely collie dog and Jemima is fine.
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She eventually is able to hatch some ducklings back on the farm. As an adult, when you read the tale of Jemima Pudduck, you notice how there's a clever tie-in with the Victorian language of flowers. As Jemima is leaving the farm, looking for somewhere to lay her eggs, she comes across the fox.
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And he is shrouded by all these gorgeous foxgloves. Jemima is very taken in by the gentleman fox, but we know that he is sneaky sneaky and that foxgloves represents secrets, riddles and insincerity, which is all of the things of the foxes. Everything is fine in the end, but if only Jemima Pududuk knew her flowers.
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In The Secret Garden, in the book, there's only one mention of foxgloves, and that's about Dickon planting them near his cottage. However, in the film version, in the one that was made in 1993, they're featured quite prominently. There's a scene where Mary is surrounded by the huge spikes of the foxgloves, and for whatever reason,
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it's just stayed in my mind. It doesn't have a purpose in the story, but I think that it's just such a striking flower. So the image has really stuck with me. Whilst we're talking about children's literature, I'd like to point out that Cicely Mary Barker has written a poem about the foxglove.
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It's in the Flower Fairies Summer Edition. For people familiar with the Flower Fairies and Barker's work, they'll know that she was very diligent with her research. This is reflected in her drawings, but also what she writes in each of her poems. In the first stanza of the foxglove fairy there's a line about the fat velvet bee
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finding the foxglove which is so accurate as we know that foxgloves are a great source of pollen for bees. Later on in the episode we will be talking about fairies a little bit more but for the time being I'm going to put a pin in it. The foxglove does have a really rich history.
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I would just like to point out that it is very, very poisonous. So do not consume this plant. Don't handle it without gardening gloves. Just be very wary of it. Enjoy it from a distance. But historically, it has been used to create dye. Using the leaves, you can make a black dye that works really well on stonework.
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There was records of people using the dye to paint crosses on their homes as protection or to fend off evil. The leaves of the foxglove have also been used as a herbal remedy for dropsy. It was recorded in 1785 as a discovery by the physician William Withering. However, it's been used in medicine for many years before that.
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There's records of it being used in the Roman Empire. There's also a bit of drama that goes along with the William Withering story and I just love me some drama. So the story goes is that when Withering was a young doctor he was annoyed that
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people were choosing to visit a local wise woman instead of paying to visit him. He observed this local wise woman picking foxglove leaves and realised that she was offering it as a herbal remedy. So he used this to inspire his own research and then essentially stole the idea from her.
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The drug derived from the foxglove is called digitalin and in the past it's been used to treat epilepsy and other disorders and it has also been used to treat heart conditions. There was also a record of it being used by Romani people to treat eczema as well.
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But I would just like to reiterate that the foxglove is very, very poisonous. In Fiona Stafford's book, The Brief Life of Flowers, there was something that caught my eye. In the Times Telescope in 1822, there was a note of foxglove tea being taken recreationally. It was recorded in Derbyshire, which happens to be my hometown.
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It was described as being popular among the local women, quote, of the poorer class, unquote. Foxgloves grow so easily, so it was with very little expense and very little effort that you could collect the leaves from foxgloves to make the tea. I must stress, do not make this tea. But in the record from Derbyshire, it said that
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The tea produced great exhilaration of the spirits and other singular effects on the system. Didn't go any further to explain what those effects were. And as we chatted about Beatrix Potter earlier, I thought it was quite interesting to include this, that there was a record of Beatrix Potter collecting the leaves from the foxglove during the war.
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And Beatrix Potter was based up in the Lake District. So yeah, it wasn't just Derbyshire that made this tea. I'm now going to take you on a trip up to Scotland, which is where I'm based. In the Scottish Borders, foxgloves are referred to as witch's thimbles, which might be one of my favourite names for them.
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It's believed that they got this name because foxgloves were favoured by witches. And Fiona Stafford, in her book The Brief Life of Flowers, suggested that the slight droop at the tip of many of the foxgloves brought to mind the pointed hats of witches and wizards.
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There was also a lot of references in Scottish folklore about how unlucky the foxglove is, particularly to bring it inside your home or to take it on board a ship. you do often see an overlap with plants or flowers that are poisonous and then the folklore suggesting that they are unlucky. This is just my opinion,
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but I think this is probably a great way to ward children off from picking certain flowers if they think it's going to bring them bad luck. On the flip side to that, in Christine Iverson's book, The Hetero Apothecary, she noted that in Scotland, foxglove leaves were put in babies' cradles
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to protect them from evil, but I couldn't find whereabouts in Scotland that had been practised. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot of folklore about foxgloves and fairies. That's unsurprising given that some of the regional names include Fairy Gloves, Fairy Fingers, Fairy Petticoats, Fairy Thimbles and I think there's just some wildflowers that when you're near them
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or when you're looking at them they just make you think of fairies and foxgloves are definitely one of those for me. There were some tales that were quite sweet and there were some tales that were quite sinister. there's a West Country legend that if you see a foxglove bobbing away,
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then this is actually the flower bowing down to a fairy. And Christine Iverson used the term fairy thunder, which I just thought was so delightful, which means shaking a foxglove and it upsets the fairies and so they rumble and make some fairy thunder in their annoyance. On the more sinister side,
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there was a few mentions of a medieval ritual using foxgloves that's definitely not recommended. Badly behaved children used to be labelled as changelings. A changeling is often found in European folklore and it was the substitute left behind when a fairy or a supernatural being kidnapped a human being.
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So if parents were concerned that their innocent child had been swapped for a changeling, there was a way to test it. If you popped three drops of foxglove juice on the child's tongue and then three drops in each ear, they were then made to sit on a shovel which was swung three times through an open doorway.
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As you were doing this, you would shout, if you're a fairy, away with you. There was no real mention of how successful this was, but regardless, your child would be either very sick or very traumatised from this experience. I did also come across a lot of associations with midwifery.
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As far as I could work out, I think this might be related to the Roman mythology around Juno and Jupiter. So Juno is the queen of the gods, as well as goddess of marriage and childbirth. And Jupiter is the king of the gods. So the tale is that Juno was really angry at Jupiter
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It's kind of messy, but essentially Jupiter birthed Minerva from his head and Juno didn't like that. She was jealous and angry and so she had a big old moan to Flora. Flora is the goddess for flowers and spring. So to solve the situation,
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Flora then lightly touched Juno on her breasts and her belly with a flower and this impregnated Juno. And the flower that Flora chose to use was the foxglove. There was also this theory that I came across that is pure speculation, but I found it quite interesting.
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The theory is, is that Vincent van Gogh was treated with digitalis for his epilepsy. People suffering from digitalis poisoning are known to have a yellow haze in their vision. And some art critics speculate that this was the cause for Van Gogh's yellow hue in a lot of his paintings. To add another layer to it,
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Vincent Van Gogh painted his physician, Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet, and in both of his portraits, Van Gogh painted him holding a stem of a foxglove. So yeah, it's just pure speculation, but it was quite a fun rabbit hole to go down. I've got one final tale that I want to share with you. In the book,
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The Forager's Calendar by John Wright, he tells of a story of a woman who was helping her friend out who was a florist. The florist and her friend were arranging foxgloves without gloves. And by the end of the day, she said, and I quote, feeling faint and missing more heartbeats than seemed advisable, though she soon recovered.
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and despite reading this and despite researching this whole episode the other week I was working on a wedding that used fox gloves and I wasn't wearing gloves and I didn't I didn't get sick it was totally fine But for whatever reason,
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I was trying to locate something in the studio and I spun around a few times and it made me feel really dizzy. And my immediate thought was, oh no, the fox gloves have got me. For a list of the sources that I used for this episode, please head over to my Substack.
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There's a link in the show notes. Substack allows you to leave comments on each episode as well. So if you have any thoughts or feedback, please let me know. Unless you've only got horrible things to say, then, you know, you can just scroll past. Two books that I found particularly helpful for this episode were Christine
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Iverson's The Hedgerow Apothecary and Fiona Stafford's The Brief Life of Flowers. The final thought I'd like to leave with you is this line from Foxgloves by Mary Webb. Every crimson bell, down slanted, is so utterly enchanted. Thank you so much for listening to this first episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I had loads of fun.
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If you have some interesting folklore about the foxglove you'd like to share, please do come let me know. Or if you'd like to send me any photos of foxgloves that you've seen out and about, send them my way. You can find me on Substack or you can find me on Instagram. On Instagram, my handle is rookbotanics.
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That's R-O-O-K botanics. You can also send me an email. The address is podcast at rookbotanics.com. I hope to record a monthly episode. I would love to do more, but I don't think I have the time. It was so much fun researching and recording, but it was quite time consuming.
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It would be really great if you could share this episode with a friend, subscribe to the show or leave me a five star review. Alternatively you can do none of those things and that's totally fine. I'm just so pleased that you're here. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next month.
