“There is a double flowret, white and red,
That our lasses call Herb Margaret,
In honour of Cortona’s penitent,
Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent;
While on her penitence kind Heaven did throw
The white of purity surpassing snow;
So white and red in this fair flower entwine,
Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine.”
This St. Margaret of Cortona, who in mediæval days was very popular, had for some years, says Mrs. Jameson, led an abandoned life, but having repented and been canonised, she was regarded by the people of her native town as a modern Magdalene; and, like her prototype, was supposed, on account of her early habits, to preside over uterine diseases, and others peculiar to young women. The Daisy, and other flowers which were supposed from their shape to resemble the Moon, were by the ancients dedicated to the virgin goddess of the night, Artemis, or Diana: but in Christian times were transferred to the two saints who replace her, namely, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret of Cortona. Dr. Prior, in his work on plant names, points out that this latter saint has often been confounded with a St. Margaret of Antioch, who was “invoked as another Lucina, because in her martyrdom she prayed for lying-in-women.” This maiden of Antioch is described in old metrical legends as
“Maid Marguerite that was so meeke and milde.”