Dear Motley Officers, Crew and Friends, let me tell you a story.
In the beginning, when God was making the earth, He gave all the animals and plants colours; God was very generous. But by the time Snow arrived God had no colours left. “I am sure you can find some colour - just ask the animals and plants to give you some of theirs, they have plenty”, God said. So transparent Snow wandered the world asking animals and plants if they would give her some colour.
But nobody would give away any of their colour. Just when Snow was getting desperate, thinking she would be transparent for ever, she heard a little snowdrop say “would you like some of my colour?”.
The snowdrop scraped off some of her white and gave it to Snow. Now, if you look carefully at a snowdrop you can see green streaks on the inner petals, where she scraped too much white off. But Snowdrop was very small and did not have very much white to give, which is why, when you hold a handful of snow in the light, you will see snow is still mostly transparent.
Snow was very grateful for the white and said to Snowdrop; “I will shelter you in winter and let you come up through the snow to bloom before all the other flowers. You will be the symbol of spring.” From a Scottish fable.
Wikipaedia says “Galanthus, snowdrop (Greek: gála ánthos "milk flower") is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae”. I don’t understand that sentence but since many of you are gardeners, I felt I should add the scientific information. Wild snowdrop species are spread all over Europe, but their heartland is in Turkey.
It is thought that Homer is referring to snowdrops in the Odyssey: “the flower as white as milk, the gods call it moly”. Moly was the herb given to Odysseus to protect him from goddess Circe’s deadly potions. Bringing the story full circle, chemists have identified and extracted galantamine from the bulb, which is now synthesised and used as medication in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, among other conditions.
Although there have been snowdrops growing on the British Isles for centuries, some snowdrop varieties were introduced to Britain because of the Crimean war.
There have been many wars in southeastern Europe, and the political situation has always been complicated. As is tragically illustrated by the current war in Ukraine. To over simplify (after all this talk is about snowdrops not war), Russia occupied territories in the Crimea that had previously been controlled by the Ottoman / Turkish Empire. In 1853 the Ottomans declared war on Russia. After the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea, Britain and France joined the Ottoman Empire to fight against Russia.
In October of 1854 the Light Brigade of the British cavalry (soldiers on horses) were ordered to charge at the enemy. Due to ignorant, arrogant, aristocratic officers, and miscommunication, the encounter was a disaster.
The 670 men of the Light Brigade rode for over a mile, over a flat meadow in a valley, towards the 50 heavy artillery guns. The Russians had a clear view of them, well before the horses and riders came into range of the guns. Beside the guns there were thousands of Russian soldiers. The Russian commanders initially thought that the British cavalry had to be drunk. In his poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854), Alfred Tennyson dubbed this ‘The Valley of Death’.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
At the end of the charge of 670 men, 118 men were killed, 127 wounded and about 60 taken prisoner. 335 horses were killed in action or had to be put down afterwards. The fighting continued, while diseases like cholera and malaria caused an even greater number of casualties.
In the midst of all the horror came the hard Crimean winter. But British soldiers were amazed to see the battlefields covered in small, frail snowdrops. These pretty and delicate flowers flourished in the harsh Crimean climate. They covered the countryside so thickly that it looked like a fall of fresh snow. The flowers were the Crimean snowdrop (Galanthus plicatus).
Many of the British soldiers took tiny bulbs home with them, some even slipped the bulbs (little bigger than a grain of wheat) into letters to their wives and sweethearts at home. They were carefully planted and flowered the following year. Snowdrops were planted on the graves of the soldiers who died in the Crimea, and the snowdrop was christened ‘the flower of consolation’1.
Snowdrops bloom in the UK between January & March but sometimes earlier as the earth warms up. Plant bulbs in late April and May.
‘The snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her hedde on Candlemas daie.
While the crocus hastens to the shrine
Of primrose lone on St Valentine.’
An excerpt from an Old English floral calendar dating back to the 19th century.
In the past Snowdrops were called ‘Candlemas bells’ and decorated churches at Candlemas. Candlemas day is on 2nd of February, when the Virgin Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem, both to be purified 40 days after the birth of her son, and to present Jesus to God. It was the custom for young women dressed in white to walk in procession to church at Candlemas.
As always, any links are provided to give the reader more information. I do not make any money from these links. Where possible permissions have been sought for the use of images and text, unless they are in the Public Domain. If there is an issue with copyright, please contact me. I am an amateur historian covering a wide range of subjects. I do careful research using secondary sources (books, articles, videos and a little bit of Wikipedia). If there are any mistakes I apologise, and please let me know.
The Crimean war ended in 1856. The Russians lost. Thousands of men died. Tragedies and blunders in the war, such as ‘the charge of the light brigade’ and the poor sanitation in field hospitals, could not be hidden from the public. This led to reforms of the military, and due to the work by Florence Nightingale, improvements in field hospitals.