wildflowers

wildflowers

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wildflowers come in and out of fashion. In the 1960's we were flower children and beautiful girls picked flowers and twirled around dervish style in a joyous manner.
Throughout human history, during wars, after a large brutal battle, local townspeople bury the dead, of both armies, and gently drop flowers on the graves.

Our ancient ancestors would have been intimately acquainted with wild flowers. They would walk through them while hunting or gathering and sleep on or near them at night. Perhaps they collected sweet smelling flowers to freshen their camps.

Ring around the Rosie pocket full of posies. During the Black Death, the great plague of 1348, well to do Europeans lined their pockets with flowers. They served as a nosegays to be pulled out and put on their face to ward of the odor of the dead. Fully 30 to 40 per cent of the citizenry of Europe died of the black death from 1348 to 1350. In time the posies in the pocket were clutched during the black death to ward off invisible unknown infections. What terror must have been felt by those living at the time of the plague.

An escape to the country, with its clean and pure air, and beautiful wildflowers was the wish of most during the black death. Without warning or a known cause the Black Death devastated Western Europe and marshaled in monumental changes to the existing social order.

At the time of the Black Death in England, then enjoying relative prosperity, the average life span was forty years. What terror must have been felt by those living at time of the Black Death, a more religious age than ours, trying to escape the horror of the biological Armageddon sent by God. Lining ones pockets with posies, trying to ward off the invisible forces of a brutal early death. Helpless against the invisible wrath of god.

Pick a wildflower and place it to the memory of our ancestors who lived with the terror of the Black Death.