THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Laurel

Lisa Karen Miller

“Because thou canst not be

My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree;

Be thou the prize of honour and renown,

The deathless poet and the poet’s crown;

Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,

And, after poets, be by victors worn.”

“Metamorphoses,” Ovid

          The laurel is sacred to Apollo in memory of Daphne, by whose name it is sometimes known.  The daughter of a river god, she was fleeing Apollo’s advances (he was a bit of a lad, apparently) and asked her father to save her. As she reached the stream, he turned her into this tree and thereby preserved her chastity.

          Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s famous life-sized marble sculpture of this moment is a masterwork. The fluidity of the figures (you can almost see them moving) and the technical difficulty of the piece (lots of little fiddly bits sticking out and susceptible to breakage) combine to make it an astounding creation.

          In the United States we have a Poet Laureate and, internationally, Nobel Laureates, so named because of the honor wearing laurel bestows.  Alfred Nobel, who funded these prizes in his will, was a writer and inventor. He is perhaps best known for the Peace Prize.

           His most famous invention?  Dynamite.

          It was used to reduce costs in mine excavation.  It actually saved lives by blasting rock at a distance instead of having men manually dig it out, putting them in danger of cave-ins.

          Greeks placed a laurel bough over the doorway to keep out evil spirits.

          In all my research on folk uses of plants, I have found none so common as repelling evil.  Coming in at a close second is getting rid of warts.  Our poor ancestors must have been covered with them.

          The threshold of newly-married couples in Holland was strewn with flowers, the laurel foremost among them. A Persian love potion included laurel seed in pigeon broth.

          Bathing in a laurel leaf tea eases aching limbs, and leaves softened by hot water can be used as a bandage for bee stings.

          Universities have long used laurel leaves and wreaths in their insignia. Hospitals used to hang them over their doors, and newly qualified doctors were given garlands upon their graduation. This garland was known as bacca laureaus, or laurel berry.

          This now translates as baccalaureate – a university degree.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller