In the meadow of my house there stands a rocky outcrop of stones, piled one on top of another so as to create a hillock where the grass has grown over all. I love to go there. I sit on the highest point of the highest stone to look over the valley, and to listen to the sounds of the wind in the pine tree to the left of the hillock. Sometimes I would go there to talk to the wind, and to any faeries that might be about.
Come summer, the place is swaying in a sea of foxgloves.
Saturday, July 15, 1876
FOXGLOVES AND FAIRIES
by James Britten, in The Gardeners' Chronicle
“In Cheshire the plant is called ‘Fairies’ Petticoat,’ and in East Anglia ‘Fairy-thimble;’ in the North of England ‘Witches’-thimble,’ and in Ireland its fairy names are numerous, eg., ‘Fairy-cap,’ ‘Fairy-bell,’ ‘Fairy-weed,’ ‘Fairy-glove’ - the last being of course an exact equivalent of ‘Folk’s-glove.’ A writer in Science Gossip for 1870 says: ‘Its flowers are believed to form the caps of a certain class of sprites belonging to the order of Puck - a very rural, cattle-loving, mischief-breeding set of fairies.’ The country people, he says, used to believe that each plant of Digitalis was a fairy home, and that the little creatures used to scuttle into the bells, thus gloving themselves from observation when a passer-by disturbed their revels. The fairy-herb keeps its stem bent, as a salut to any supernatural being that should pass, and also from the weight of so many nightly gambollers amongst its bells. The flowers that have fallen from its stem are the discarded caps and clothing of last night’s revellers. ”
“and away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could, concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where, if their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look like its crimson bells... ”
