There are many wild flowers in Belgium and the cultivated ones are very numerous and showy, especially in Flanders, where, at Ghent, there is the flower market of the world. In the fields, one sees the blue flax flower by the acre, the fleur-de-lys, the corn flower, and many others, besides the marguerite daisy, which the Walloons, who made the first homes in New York, brought to our continent of America.
Not a few of these Belgian flowers can be recognized on the coats of arms of the old crusaders, and on the crests and shields of the nobles and the honorable families. They are also carved on the public buildings, or made or set, with jewels and in gold, and worn as rings, bracelets, necklaces and brooches.
Most striking and showy of all is the poppy, with its flaming red petals. In the grain fields it grows among the wheat, making brilliant contrast of crimson and yellow. This harvest of gold, dotted with red is noted by every traveler, and reminds one of the Belgian flag. For a thousand years, the dying soldiers on the battle fields of Flanders, as they closed their eyes in death, to sleep in God, have cast their final look at the crimson poppy.
In Fairy Land, this flower has a noble reputation and our story will tell why.
Once upon a day, in a time and an age too far back for any almanacs to mark, or astronomer to reckon, there was strife among the fairies as to which was the more honorable. They all wanted to be kings or queens, princes or princesses, but the earth’s surface was not big enough for so many thrones. Besides, if all were sovereigns, where would be the subjects to obey and serve?
Fairy Land became so excited over the matter, that one would think the fairies were going to war; just as foolish mortals do, when they quarrel and kill each other. Since all were so haughty, and so prone to sulk, and be surly, it was necessary that one of the fairies should give up all pride and ambition and set an example of modesty, unselfishness and sacrifice.
It seemed all the more strange and unseemly, that the fairies living on the surface of the earth, or in the moonshine and starlight, should quarrel. One might rather expect that the kabouters and elves, who live down under the earth, and work at the forges and fires, and get sooty from long dwelling among coal and smoke, would be the ones to be proud and bad tempered.
But no, these fairies underground were the most modest, humble, and peaceable of all. In fact, they rarely ever came up on the earth, unless some special duty or summons called them. The fairies of the upper world, where men lived, looked down on the kabouters and elves as far beneath them, and not at all in their society.
This fairy, of modest disposition, who was willing to set a good example, offered to the other fairies that, if they would stop their quarrelings and think only how they might help and serve good boys and girls, and not play tricks on milkmaids and farmers, she would become a kabouter. She would lay aside all her pretty clothes, wreaths, jewels and ornaments, and go down into the dark caves and deep into the earth to live there forever. She would learn the secrets of the elves, that work in the mines and at the fires, and she would make something beautiful for her old friends and companions, or else bring forth a new flower. Around this, they could dance and hold their revels, and so forget their jealousies and strife. For fairies, like men, get tired of old ways and scenes, which they have had a long time. They like to have new things that are fresh and bright.
When they all heard the most beautiful of the fairies talk in this way, they at once put aside their quarrels, and every one resolved to behave properly—at least till she came back.
But she never returned, and this was the reason.
First, she put off all her beautiful garments and donned clothes that were of a dark and sad color. Then she went far down underground and into the caverns of the world beneath, and deeper even than the coal mines of the Boringue, and the zinc mines of Moresnet.
Coming suddenly upon a company of kabouters, these rude fellows at once seized her, crying out:
“Now we’ve got you. We’ve long wanted to catch one of the upper world fairies, for despising us sooty folk and making us work so hard for them. We have served your kind long enough. Now you shall do our will.”
So they tied around her waist one of their blacksmith’s leather aprons and stuck her pretty feet in old wooden shoes. Next, putting a pair of tongs into her hands, they bade her beat an iron bar, drawn red hot from the forge fire. Then, standing in front of the anvil, she had to beat the bar out flat. The kabouter, who was set to watch her and keep her busy, was one of the ugliest of their number. He had a cruel leer in his eye, and gloated over her, while she toiled wearily. He scolded and even beat her, when she almost fainted under the hard tasks, to which she was so suddenly put and to which she was wholly unused.
Yet this earth fairy was very wise, while she was among the kabouters, and gradually she learned many of their secrets. One of these was the way these elves procured their iron; which was from the particles in the blood of the millions of men slain, on the soil of Belgium, ever since human beings came on the earth, and which makes blood so red. Here, the rival and hostile races had met on the thousand battle fields, known and unknown to human history. These were more numerous than spots on a leopard or stripes on a zebra. Torrents of blood had been poured out, and again and again the soil had been reddened, and the turf made to look dark with the stains. Sometimes, even rills and rivers ran red.
But the kindly rain from Heaven had made the human life-stream soak into the soil, and nature soon came with her sweet mantle of flowers to heal, and to reconcile, and make men forget. So to the new generation of boys and girls, each war, as it came and went, made only one more story to tell around the fireside on winter nights; for in summer with play and work, and dance and song they thought only of what was just before them. Not for the young to look back over the past, except to hear about the fairies!
So, one generation after another, of human beings, forgot what had happened in former years and ages. Moreover, all the red rills, that had flowed from the veins of the wounded and dying, fed the earth and made it more fertile. Even their flesh and bones soon mingled with the soil and their elements reappeared in grain and trees, plants and flowers. Only the iron atoms of the blood of the soldiers remained in the ground. From the time when men fought with stone axes and arrows, to the days we can remember, when they used poison gas and dropped bombs from the sky, men fed the earth with their bodies and blood and left widows and orphans at home.
By the aid of their secret powers, the kabouters had collected these iron particles, that were once floating in human veins and arteries, and they made them into their tools, such as hammers, tongs, anvils, chains, locks, keys, and what not. They also possessed the secrets of the colors, that enter into the clays, flowers, stones, dyes for garments and whatever has tint or hue. The kabouters knew that, underneath all colors, of any sort or kind, there must be a metal, which, with other elements, becomes the basis of all dyes, paints, and tints in or on anything solid or liquid.
Almost all the wonders of chemistry were known to these elves, and often, in talking to each other, they declared that everything, which the human artist laid on canvas, or with which he tinted his wall, or house, was caused by some chemical change in metals.
One of the most wonderful of their secrets was the transformation of iron into rouge, which the girls and women put on their cheeks, in order to imitate the lovely rose tints, with which nature paints the faces of her children. Yet whereas, in health and vigor, the color comes to the human face from within, foolish folks put it on from without. Indeed, in some countries, the forefinger and finger nail of the maidens which, at the tips, is usually red, is named “the rouge finger,” because most used for this purpose by the girls who wear out the carpet in front of their looking glasses.
Now it was an old kabouter, that was kind to the fairy from the upper earth, who told her the secret of the splendid hue of the red petals of the poppy.
“It is the same color, and the same metal, in the crimson flowers, as that laid on the faces of the pretty girls, in their boudoirs; or that comes naturally to the cheeks of the healthy young men and maidens. Now I can tell you how you can make a new flower, as red as blood, that will spring up all over the fields of Flanders.”
The fairy clapped her hands with delight.
“O tell me how. I should gladly die, if I might end the quarrels of the fairies and leave behind me a crimson flower. I want something, on Belgian soil, that shall make its people love their land all the more, and, by its color, remind them of the blood of the slain of many generations of men. Let the red flower spring up everywhere, without thought or labor. So will they value the more their beloved country, when they plant and cultivate the white lilies of peace.”
“So shall it be, if you say it,” said the old kabouter, “but life for life. You must give up your own life, and the flower will be your transformation. Die, and the red flowers shall live. And we kabouters also love Belgium. We shall let the iron atoms, gathered during ages, from the dead, enter with your life into the new blooms which shall spring up. There is already enough iron in the soil to tint the petals for a thousand years to come.”
At this word of promise, the fairy cried out “Good! it shall be a memorial of the thousand generations of the brave men, who have died on Belgic soil, and on Flanders fields, and it will also heal the quarrels of my people.” Then, sinking down, she breathed out her life, and was no more.
That night, there was a funeral among the fairies. In the softest spot, in the centre of a fairy ring, among the grass and yellow and blue flowers, they laid her to rest in a sad burial. Nevertheless the burden of their song was of promise and joy, and in praise of beauty; for the earth’s surface was now to wear a new floral jewel.
And behold, in the next spring time, the earth seemed dotted with jets of flame, as if a thousand fairies were each one kindling a tiny memorial fire, in remembrance of human lives given for others.
From that day of the grave in the fairy’s ring, there was peace among the fairies. And in our time, the poppies of Belgium keep a perpetual Decoration Day, because of the generations of the slain on the soil of Belgium the Beautiful.