Heather. The heart of October

‘…With a heather in your heart

give a refuge to my love …’

by Anastasia Gracheva

The asters of September, promise and guardian of an eternal and sincere love, are replaced by the mysterious month of October, which arrives holding a sprig of heather. ‘Calluna vulgaris’ symbolises deep mystery, fatal passion, risk and the sound of rain on the Scottish moors. If you decide to give one of its sprigs to a loved one, do not forget to say that it is thanks to your meeting that you no longer feel loneliness and sadness. In this way, you will be able to convey the true meaning of this hardy plant full of secrets…..

One of the most famous legends about the heather comes from the Druidic tradition and tells the story of Oscar and Malvina. According to the legend, Ossian, the famous Celtic chieftain, had a daughter, Malvina, who was betrothed to the warrior Oscar. But a messenger brought them terrible news: her future husband had fallen in the war. The messenger handed Malvina a bouquet of heather, but when her tears touched the ground, the petals of the heather turned from purple to white. Malvina exclaimed that whoever picked them up would be lucky. There is also a version of the legend…. according to which Malvina’s lover returned from the war safe and sound….

There is also the story of the Picts, a people from the north of Scotland. The legend of ‘The last Pict king and the heather beer’ is one of the most famous, based on a clash between the Vikings and the last two surviving Picts… They alone possessed the secret of the miraculous drink – heather honey, which restores youth and strength. This freedom-loving people did not reveal their secret to their Viking enemies and took it to their graves. The story is somewhat dramatic, in the spirit of the time: to keep the secret, the father sacrificed his own son, whose loyalty he doubted… The poet Robert Lewis Stevenson described this story in his work “Heather Ale. Poem of the Last of the Picts” (1890):

From the bonny bells of heather
   They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
   Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
   And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
   In their dwellings underground.

There rose a king in Scotland,
   A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
   He hunted them like roes…”

Honey produced by bees in heather fields (‘Heather’) is rich in minerals and protein compounds. Its surprising aroma and sour flavour are characteristic of Heather Honey. And after long storage, the flavour and aroma become more expressive and unique.

Scottish heather honey occupies a prominent place in the honey flavour gallery. It is actively used in the preparation of Scottish Drambuie liqueur, a complex composition of aged Scotch whisky, heather honey and mountain herbs dating back to 1745.

In Slavic legends, the caterpillar is said to help rid the body of evil forces and negative emotions, calm the nerves, promote health and get rid of insomnia. The white caterpillar is considered the protector of all women.

The is also a favourite plant for gardens and balconies and, if you can’t make friends with it, it can stay with you in the form of a beautiful dried flower, indispensable for decorating the home. For the northern winter, it is best covered, although it has no problem living in Siberia either. It is a hardy plant, its life cycle in the wild is 50 years.

In Italy, balconies and terraces are filled with brugo in autumn, and it is one of the San Giovanni herbs. The name of this plant in Italian generally sounds like the beautiful feminine name ‘Erica’. In reality, brugo and erica are two different plants of the ericaceae family, looking very similar, but with different flowering periods.

Flowering depends on climatic conditions: heather flowers generally appear at the end of winter, whereas heather flowers bloom at a completely different time, from late summer to autumn.

To conclude this article, we would like to mention the paintings by the 19th century French artist William Didier-Pouget, which were hung in royal rooms. William was the son of a newspaper publisher from Toulouse. In 1886 he exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon. His paintings decorated the flats of King George I of Greece, the French embassy in St. Petersburg and the city council’s chapter house in Toulouse. Not to mention museums. Perhaps the mysterious little Scottish Pictish people did not disappear… but fled to France and hid in one of these paintings.