Flowers are a common and popular symbol carved into welsh love spoons, with different flowers often representing very different aspects of love.
One of the most popular symbols of love, and a flower of Wales itself is the daffodil, which adorns the lapels of people across the country on St David’s Day on the 1st March each year.
But where did the connection between Wales, St David, daffodils and love come from? The answers can be complex and involve a history that weaves its way through thousands of years and several different cultures.
From Self-Adoration To Joyful Love
The official botanical name for daffodils is narcissus, which is the same name as one of the most famous Greek myths ever told of the man who fell in love with his own reflection, eventually disappearing entirely; all that remained was the gold and white flower we know so well.
Because it was linked with Greek and later Roman mythology and had been mentioned in the Bible as the Rose of Sharon, the daffodil became the third most common flower in poetry outside of the rose and the lily, connected with a mix of sadness, love and death.
The connection between daffodils and love was solidified with the Romantic movement of poetry, perhaps most famously by the poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth.
His description, as well as those by his daughter Dorothy, focused on the joy, positivity and life that were conveyed through the brightness of the daffodils and their connection to the first bloom of spring, showcasing a faithful, innocent love.
The daffodil’s connection to Wales is rather more recent, coming after Mr Wordsworth’s poetry and amidst a wave of popularity for flower imagery during the Victorian era.
The person who brought the daffodil to national prominence in Wales and connected it as much to St David’s Day as the leek was David Lloyd George, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, who wore the flower on his lapel in 1911.
