Daffodils for St David’s Day…

Miniature daffodils in the garden, in flower in time for St David's Day

Oh how we love our daffodils, here in Wales. And especially today, March 1, St David’s Day – our national day. We have a choice – to wear a daffodil or a leek – so most people choose the daff and an easy way is to buy a charity daffodil pin from Marie Curie Cancer Care. I’ll be wearing mine.

It’s also a day when junior school children wear “national dress” to school – although often now they dress up a week in advance to have a group picture taken for the local newspaper!

Girls can always wear the traditional “Welsh lady” costume. But it’s more difficult for boys. They used to wear a miner’s outfit, but with the decline of industry, they now tend to wear red Welsh rugby or football shirts.

Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting, painting by William Dyce, 1860, National Museum Wales - that outfit on the right is the one imitated by little girls on St David's Day

St David was a 6th century Welsh bishop and you can read all about him on Wikipedia. The one piece of trivia I hadn’t realised until now is that St David was apparently the person who arranged with God that we in Wales should be given a warning of our own deaths through the appearance of corpse candles, so we could prepare. Ooo, creepy!

St David pictured in a stained-glass window in St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, where he is buried - click on the picture to see more of my images of St David's

I also hadn’t realised the leek became our symbol after a battle against the Saxons in a leek field, when St David told our men to wear a leek on their helmets so they could recognise each other(!).

I can’t help thinking the daffodil came later as a symbol, since it shares the same name as the leek in Welsh: a leek is cenhinen, while a daffodil in cenhinen Bedr, Peter’s leek. I wonder who Peter was?

Happy St David’s Day! Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant hapus!