And they call it poppy love...

When Harringay Birder tweeted these beautiful photos of poppies by the water's edge at the New River by Woodberry Wetlands, I knew this week my flower ramblings had to be about the field poppy. I saw them blooming all over Harringay and its environs, brilliant for a day and then their petals gone.

At Ducketts Common, radiant amongst the white of the daisies, 

and in a street garden in Cranleigh Road. 

Poppies are a source of pollen for bees but the human relationship with the poppy is strong and goes back into the distant past.

In ancient Egypt, poppy seeds were used to relieve pain; in Greek and Roman myth, poppies were used as offerings to the dead, but also as a symbol of resurrection after the myth that Somnus, the god of sleep, created the poppy for Ceres who, exhausted by her search for her daughter, was neglecting the cornfields. After her opium induced sleep, she took up her duties and revived the cornfields. Ceres is often depicted with a poppy wreath. 

Closer to home, poppies folk names show the caution exercised by the English in handling the poppy: in Huntingdonshire it was known as 'headaches', in Buckinghamshire as 'blind eyes' and in Devon it was believed that plucking them caused thunderstorms. In some counties, poppies were believed to bring ill luck if brought into the house, although popping into the garden to peer into its black centre was thought to cure insomnia. In witchlore, inserting a written question into a poppy seed pod and putting it under your pillow will supposedly provoke dreams that will guide you to an answer. In traditional medicine, poppies were given both to induce sleep and to treat problems with the throat and catarrh. While sprinkling a few poppy seeds on your bread is harmless, never be tempted to make tea with them.

Corn poppies are, most famously, a symbol of remembrance for the fallen of World War One and, due to the paper poppy sold by the British Legion and worn around November 11th, also now to commemorate all those who die in wars.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard among the guns below." - John McCrae

Poppies thrive in churned up ground and the battlefields of France bloomed with them after the guns fell silent, but even before then poppies were associated with battle fields. The poppies that bloomed after the bloody Battle of Waterloo were believed to have grown from the blood of the dead.

The poppy appears in much myth and folklore; I just love to see them pop up in the cracks and the wasteland. I've always been hopeless at growing them, despite scattering millions of seeds and doing everything the gardening blogs say. Best to enjoy them where and when they bloom. As Robert Burns puts it

But pleasures are like poppies spread:
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;

Share your poppy love in the comments?

Photos of New River poppies near Woodberry Wetlands first published on Twitter and republished with the kind permission of @harringaybirder