[Vwoolf] Cornflower mystery
Toni McNaron
mcnar001 at umn.edu
Tue Jan 30 15:44:48 EST 2018
Not sure about eye shadow, but there is another name for cornflowers in
the South where I grew up. The flower is called "ragged robin," the
word I learned for it as a child. I always loved planting them--dark
blue, soft pink, off white. Their bloom looks like a wind-torn object;
it's an "untidy" bloom, hence the common name of "ragged," though I had
no idea about the "robin" part.
Years ago, in a PBS production about Elizabeth I, in powerful scene in
which Elizabeth tells Robert Dudley, her main sexual interest in many of
our minds, that his future was going to be grim, she calls him
affectionately "My ragged Robin." I began to wonder if the gardener in
the South who began calling the flower a "ragged robin" might have known
this story and thought the tattered blossom was like poor Robert
Dudley's fate.
Woolf was fascinated with Elizabeth I's life, so I offer this anecdote
to the list.
Toni
Toni McNaron
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