CANDLEMAS BELLS

Snowdrops are associated with the Virgin Mary because they are linked with a Christian festival called Candlemas. This festival celebrates the time when Mary took Jesus to the Temple, forty days after his birth, so that they could be blessed. It was called Candlemas by ordinary people because in the Middle Ages everyone in each village processed around their parish church carrying a candle. The church must have blazed with light! Candles were blessed by the priest and afterwards the people took them home to use during times when they felt frightened - perhaps during a thunderstorm or in a room where someone lay poorly. Because snowdrops flowered at the time of Candlemas, in some areas of the country they are known as 'Candlemas Bells'.

THINKING ABOUT NATURE TRADITIONS

THINKING ABOUT LIGHT IN DARKNESS

Perhaps snowdrops spread across Britain because they were grown in monastery gardens. You certainly very often find them planted in churchyards, often on individual graves. They seem to be planted in such places because they symbolize light in darkness, hope in the face of defeat.

All the great religions describe God in term of light - and look forward to God's light triumphing over darkness. Buddhists trace the origin of their faith back to the point when the Buddha became 'enlightened' while sitting under the Bodhi tree. For Muslims, God is described like this:

'God is the Light of the heavens and the earth;
The likeness of His Light is as a niche
With a lamp in it -
The lamp in a glass,
The glass like a glittering star.'
(The Qur'an, Sura 24)

For Christians, the season of Lent - the 40 days before Good Friday - is a time of darkness. Jesus is often described as the 'Light of the World'. That was how Simeon, Jesus' uncle, described his nephew when he saw him brought to the Temple on the first Candlemas: 'a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel'.

Good Friday, at the end of Lent, marks the time when Jesus was crucified, the light put out. Candlemas, the festival of shining candles, is a reminder - even before Lent begins - that darkness is not the end of the story. So too the snowdrop, growing in a winter churchyard, is a sign that Spring will come.