MenoAZering; T=Thistle

For April, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z, and you will find original images created by me and some ramblings to go with them. I will capitalise words that begin with the featured letter (on first use only). Let me know what you think of the pics, words, or both in the comments! For more of this madness, you can visit Blogchatter.

Oh, prickly plant of hill and glen, 

THISTLE stand there braw; 

metaphor of character for 

Scots, it's said you draw.

TRUE it is we may seem gruff and

bristle at the jaw;

yet ready ever to defend

this land and its law.

(Ⓒ YAM 2022)

As thistles of all kinds are to be found the world over, I have often pondered why we have it as our national symbol here in the Bonny Land. The Onopordum Acanthium, which is considered and called 'the Scotch Thistle', is not native and is likely to have arrived with increased TRADE from other regions of Europe and beyond. It is this invader which Walter Scott picked as the emblem for George IV's visit to Scotland in 1822, and it has been accepted as a national emblem ever since.

The thistle closest to being considered a native is the Cirsium Vulgare, aka the Spear Thistle. This is the one I became so familiar with during hay harvest on my grandfather's farm. It is shorter, straggly, and, if possible, more prickly than its bigger cousin. Handling bales with those things wrapped into the grass put many a finger at risk! Some years were worse than others, but I never did figure out why. Moisture? Drought? I don't recall it ever actually getting discussed. The men just cut the stuff, and we young 'uns gathered it up. Ah... fond memories of summers that were actually hot and seemed endless, the smell of the fresh hay, the call of the larks and swallows high in the sky, sandwiches and flask tea at lunchtime. Not long, got to make the most of the dry and light. Mum and the aunts were at it too. As we kids THREW the bales out the back, they stacked them, six by six, ready for the TRACTOR to haul them aboard a TRAILER and then to the barn.

...ahhhh... TICK TOCK goes the memory clock... half a century, yet yesterday.