Winter Aconites - Colour Among the Tombstones

"The ground is all yellow like the sun", was the astonished cry of an excited 6 year old seeing her home in a Cambridgeshire rectory for the first time. The child was a young Dorothy Sayers, the crime writer; the gold, rolling over the field, was made by the winter aconite.

This little flower can be seen gilding some of our own corners in St. Peter's churchyard. Dorothy's father, told her of the legend that these flowers were only to be found where the blood of Roman soldiers had been spilt. Apparently though the flower didn't arrive on our shores until 1596! The story though, made such an impression on the little girl that she became passionate about Ancient Rome and a keen classicist all her life.

This little flower, bravely flowering even through snow, often in woodland where sunlight is filtered through bare winter branches, is called 'Choirboys' in Suffolk. The cup shaped yellow head is surrounded by feathery green bracts like a choirboy's ruff. Another legend is that when Persephone returned from Hades to a world condemned by her mother Demeter, to eternal winter, the winter aconite was the first flower to burst into colour signifying the return of spring and warmth, hope and resilience.

Ref: Such a Strange Lady: A Biography of Dorothy L. Sayers by Janet Hitchman. 1975