[50] Folkard.

Saffron (Crocus sativus).

Nor Cyprus wild vine-flowers, nor that of Rhodes,
Nor Roses oil from Naples, Capua,
Saffron confected in Cilicia.
Nor that of Quinces, nor of Marjoram,
That ever from the Isle of Coös came,
Nor these, nor any else, though ne’er so rare
Could with this place for sweetest smells compare.

Br. Pastorals, Book I.

Clown. I must have Saffron to colour the Warden pies.

Winter’s Tale, iv. 2.

You set Saffron and there came up Wolf’s bane. (Saying to express an action which has an unexpected result.)

Saffron has been of great importance since the earliest days, and it is mentioned in a beautiful passage of the Song of Solomon. “Thy plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, Camphire with Spikenard, Spikenard and Saffron, Calamus and Cinnamon, with all trees of Frankincense, Myrrh and Aloes, with all the chief spices,” iv. 13, 14.

Canon Ellacombe says that the Arabic name, Al Zahafaran was the general name for all Croci, and extended to the Colchicums, which were called Meadow Saffrons. It is pointed out by Mr Friend that, further, the flower has given its name to a colour, and had given it in the days of Homer, and he remarks how much more exactly the expression “Saffron-robed” morning describes the particular tints seen sometimes before sunrise (or at sunset) than any other words can do. Saffron Walden in Essex, whose [arms] are given on [page 101], and Saffron Hill in London (which once formed part of the Bishop of Ely’s garden), are also obviously named after it, and as is seen in the former case it has given arms to a borough. As to its introduction into England Hakluyt writes (1582): “It is reported at Saffron Walden that a pilgrim proposing to do good to his country, stole a head of Saffron, and hid the same in his Palmer’s Staffe, which he had made hollow before of purpose, and so he brought the root into this realme with venture of his life, for if he had been taken, by the law of the countrey from whence it came, he had died for the fact” (“English Voyages,” vol. ii.). Canon Ellacombe thinks that it was probably originally brought here in the days of the Romans, and found “in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the fourteenth century, ‘Hic Crocus, Anee Safryn,’ so that I think the plant must have been in cultivation in England at that time.” In the work of “Mayster Ion Gardener,” written about 1440, one of the eight parts into which it is divided is wholly devoted to a discourse, “Of the Kynde of Saferowne,” which shows that Saffron must have been a good deal considered in his day. The Charity Commission of 1481 mentions two Saffron-gardens; and in the churchwarden’s accounts at Saffron Walden, in the second year of Richard III.’s reign, there is an entry, “Payd to John Rede for pyking of V unc Saffroni, xii.” The town accounts of Cambridge show that in 1531 Saffron was grown there; and at Barnwell in the next parish the prior of Barnwell had ten acres.

Some old wills, too, throw some light on the subject. In the will of Alyce Sheyne of Sawstone, in 1527, “a rood of Saffron” is left to her son. In 1530 (1533?) John Rede, also of Sawstone, leaves his godson a “rood of Saffron in Church Field,” and William Hockison of Sawstone, bequeathed in 1531, “to Joan, my wife, a rood of Saffron, and to my maid, Marger, and my son, John, half an acre.” As may be easily inferred from these legacies, Saffron was very largely grown at Sawstone, and the two adjoining parishes, as well as at Saffron Walden. The first man to introduce it into Saffron Walden to be cultivated on a really large scale was Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI., and in 1565, it was grown in abundance. In 1557 Turner speaks of Saffron-growing, as if this was very general, but it must be remembered that he started life in Essex, farmed successively in Suffolk and Norfolk, and returned to his native county to a farm at Fairstead, and having never moved very far from the special home of the industry, he naturally took as an ordinary proceeding, what would have been very unusual in other parts of the country. It can never have been very widely cultivated; for Turner, whose “Herbal” gives an immense deal of information, and who wrote when the industry was in full swing, omits all mention of Saffron, though he speaks of, and evidently knew Meadow Saffron.