Generosity of Clover.
'Delicate blooms of tenacious power, soft lush growth produced wherever it can flower.
Over rubble and concrete, plastic and glass, nature regenerates, cares not if you've asked.
Green fresh growth encapsulates beauty, every tiny flower tells a story.
Showing no fear it grows where it can, covering up the waste produced by man. '
J.Huet 2017
‘Plants are generous’ this is an understatement as they pour over the land and grow in the seas providing us all with free oxygen, water, food, clothing and so forth. As we have already explored their generosity is paramount for our survival on this planet. As it took plants a billion years to create the right conditions for us to survive, I do feel that it's our responsibility to maintain the equilibrium that they have created.
Clover is known as ‘bee bread’ and it spreads through our grasslands offering pure nectar not only to bees but all pollinating insects of the grass sward that clover calls home. Made up of many tiny flowers which form a compound head it is a feeding station par excellence for our beautiful winged delights. The prose below is a true ode to these winged delights:
‘Butterflies coloured like flowers waver above in wonderful profusion, and many other beautiful winged people, numbered and known and loved only by the Lord, are waltzing together high overhead, seemingly in pure play and hilarious enjoyment of their little sparks of life.
How wonderful they are! How do they get a living and endure the weather? How are their little bodies, with muscles, nerves, organs, kept warm and jolly in such admirable, exuberant health? Regarded as only mechanical inventions, how wonderful they are! Compared with these, man’s greatest machines are as nothing.’
John Muir
Qualities of Clover
Common Name: Red Clover /White Clover. Latin: Trifolium pratense / Trifolium repens Family: Fabaceae
History and/or use: Excellent for throat irritations/coughs and good green compost as fixes nitrogen.
Wildlife Value: Main flow pollen producer for invertebrates
I’m little White Clover, kind and clean;
Look at my threefold leaves so green;
Hark to the buzzing of hungry bees:
“Give us your honey, Clover, please!”
Yes, little bees, and welcome, too!
My honey is good, and meant for you!
Mary Cicely Barker
Clover is a wonderful feature of our meadows and indeed many grass areas both in the countryside and in urban areas. It is one of the first plants to produce the ‘main flow’ nectar for bees and other invertebrates after the Dandelion and Sycamore have finished flowering. Its delicate scent attracts long-tongued flies, butterflies, moths and as already mentioned bees. Once the flowers have been fertilised they fold down over their young pods and the flower untouched which is still standing is referred to as an old maid as it has not been pollinated.
Both the leaves and flowers of this plant can be eaten unless it is high in prussic acid which makes it bitter and unsuitable for consumption. It can also be used as a green compost for vegetable growers as it is able to fix nitrogen and therefore enrich the soil. Organic farmers (and indeed other growers) simply dig or rotovate the plant back into the soil. It is also good animal fodder.
If you have any medical conditions please check with a medical herbalist first before taking any plant and only harvest it if you are 100% sure what it is!
As a herb clover flowers are traditionally used as a syrup for coughs especially whopping cough and help to purify the blood. To help relieve bronchial or irritating coughs a brew of flowers can be made by steeping them in hot water for about 8 minutes and it tastes great! It is also been said to be good for liver ailments and smoked in a pipe for toothache. Today we tend to use the red clover for medicinal cures although other species can also be used.
Clover is steeped in folklore, a candidate for the Irish Shamrock or Seamrog. This mythical plant brings great fortune to all who use it. The Shamrock is thought to be the white clover or more than likely the lesser trefoil (Trifolium dubium).
It seems to be the quantity of leaves borne on clover which dictates its magical use.
The Physicians of Myddai
The red clover seduces nature with her delicate scent and her abundance of bright flowers bunched together on a single head of intense longing. She creates a healing syrup for persistent coughs and fixes nitrogen from the air into tiny packages of salt crystals which she then offers back to the soil from which she has taken.
Nature’s story is more fantastic than the most incredible tales as we look in detail at what a single soil hugging, compact plant can do. The mystery deepens and when we except the invitation to partake and live in harmony with nature as well as our own ideals, the fruition is endless.
On exploring the selfheal plant, we began a journey into the history of herbal knowledge and its demise. With the clover we will continue this journey with the Physicians of Myddai.
Strata Florida was the name of a monastery meaning ‘layers of flowers’ it was one of two monasteries (the other was Talley) sponsored by the Welsh Prince Lord Rhys in the twelfth century and it is likely they were schools and hospitals of herbal medicine.
The key practitioner of herbal medicine to the Prince was Rhiwallon assisted by his three sons, Cadwgan, Griffith and Einon. For their services to the Prince they were rewarded with the land around Myddfai. This knowledge of herbs that they employed was likely to have come from the tribes and villages of South Wales and therefore connects us to a story reminiscent of the story from the mythological cycle of Dianceacht, Miach and Airmid explored under the selfheal plant.
The Celtic folk soul is the soul of a spiritual awakening,
The touch of a Woman of Beauty who will
Come into the hearts of men and women...
Eleanor Merry
The knowledge of the Physicians of Myddai comes to light in the Welsh story of the Lady of the Lake (the touch of the women of beauty) as a young farmer is awestruck by the beauty of gazing into the lake and as he does so a beautiful women appears, the same women that is prolific through all Celtic tales and is the deity of lakes, rivers and streams which lead back to the primal existence of the sea.
This theme once more of the personification of our landscape and the beings that we share the earth with as discussed in the section on the folkloric state. This is a beautiful tale of a young farmer marrying a woman promising never to strike her more than three times. As they became closer and fonder of each other the farm prospers.
Unfortunately, the young man failed in his promise and does strike her three times forcing the woman to leave. When she leaves every sheep, lamb, cow, calf, hen, chick, duck, goose, pig and horse follow her.
This story is blatantly the relationship of man with the sovereignty of the land which is essential to maintain for the health of the planet and all who live upon it.
The final part of the story is the appearance of the Lady of the Lake to her children and instead of the ancestral legacy in the form of a Father’s mistakes being passed down the line, the children were trained by their mother to become the Physicians of Myddai.
This story is a common theme of forgotten knowledge coming forth from the Otherworld through the waterways in the form of wells, rivers and lakes. A tale of the forgotten feminine within all genders and the remembering of sacred herb lore. This has now been borne out in both the tales of Wales and Ireland and permeates the Celtic Folk soul in the form of Celtic Twilight tales to continue with Eleanor Merry’s words-
Her shadow is the forgotten mysteries
And lives in the sadness of Celtic Twilight tales....
William Butler Yeats also speaks of this sadness in his poems and writings. In his book ‘The Celtic Twilight’ first published in 1893 he speaks of this sadness contained within the poems of a young Irish man:
‘They, with their wild music of winds blowing in the reeds, seemed to me the very inmost voice of Celtic sadness, and of Celtic longing for infinite things the world has never seen.’
In the book he writes a footnote about this line stating he feels this sadness is part of all people that preserve the moods of the ancients from all around the world. In the same chapter he speaks of an older Irish man crying bittersweet tears of his experience of what happened under a thorn-tree forty years ago and describes both men as having- ‘the vast and vague extravagance that lies at the bottom of the Celtic heart.’
In one of Yeats most famous poems he states:
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats
It may be that the clover, sun-soaked meadows, exquisite tastes and smells seduce us to remember a world where we all live in harmony with creation and that sadness is part of the awakening process of knowing all is well but incomplete. That incompleteness drives us on to discover that perfection is in everything over time.
Clover is generous in her many shapes and forms, giving and sharing life as she adds nutrients to the soil and feeds the insects. Her strength is reflected in her name for clover is derived from the latin ‘clava’ which means a club. The club is the triple leaf shape, the three lobed club of Hercules as represented in playing cards which is the epitome of strength.
The symbol of three is prolific in Celtic tradition as well as Christian lore representing the three principles of all life in the stages of growth, perfection and age, and in the colours of red, white and black. The red of blood which is our life force, passion and consciousness, the white of snow which is our purity, illumination and hopefulness and the black of the raven which is our foundation, death and rebirth.
'In old traditions they say everything is perfect. In our human lives we cry out how can this be so? If it were not so the planets would fall from the skies and life would not exist.
The fact we are breathing demonstrates perfection and the wonder of all creation.'
Lucinda Boswell
Listen to the song of clover and indeed all of nature and see perfection in all that happens.
