Legend Of The Dogwood

by Pamela Smale Williams

Original - Not For Sale

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Dimensions

1434.000 x 2260.000 pixels

Title

Legend Of The Dogwood

Artist

Pamela Smale Williams

Medium

Digital Art - Photograph Or Photopainting

Description

The Legend of the Dogwood~
The story, generally told at Easter when the dogwoods flower, adds that Christ caused the flowers of the dogwood to be a reminder of the cross on which He died. He allegedly did this by giving the flower two long and two short petals, and to have what look like nail prints on the petals to remind us that Christ suffered on the cross with nails through His hands.
The verses from the story are:
"When Christ was on earth, the dogwood grew
To a towering size with a lovely hue.
Its branches were strong and interwoven,
And for Christ's cross its timbers were chosen.
Being distressed at the use of the wood,
Christ made a promise which still holds good:
Never again shall the dogwood grow
To be large enough for a tree, and so,
Slender and twisted it shall always be,
With cross-shaped blossoms for all to see.
The petals shall have bloodstains marked brown,
And in the blossom's center a thorny crown.
All who see it will think of me,
Nailed to a cross from a dogwood tree.
Protected and cherished this tree shall be,
A reflection to all of my agony."
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Most Dogwood flowers are pure white with rusty red spots around the edges of all four petals. The white color is considered a symbol of purity in Western culture, although it is the color of death in many Eastern cultures instead. Christian sources claim the rusty spots on the petals are the marks of the Crucifixion because they resemble blood. Pink and dark red Dogwood varieties are also available that carry more love and passion symbolism, especially in the Victorian tradition of signaling love with the gift of a bloom from this tree.
The Dogwood is primarily a symbol of Christianity. Outside of that tradition, it is not considered a birth flower or used for arrangements.The Victorians did ascribe an extra meaning to the flower because the story tying the tree to the Crucifixion wasn't written yet. A bachelor would offer a Dogwood flower sprig to a woman he felt affection towards and waited for a response. If the flower was returned, he was out of luck. A woman keeping the flower signaled an interest or mutual attraction.The flower was also a symbol of reliability and durability during that era due to the strength of the wood.
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Gospel of the flowers? Certainly some of the ingredients of the dogwood story can be used to remind us of Christ's death on the cross: The petals in a shape of a cross, the centre as the crown of thorns, and the holes at the petals' edges can remind us of the nail prints in Christ's hands. References warn we should never attribute the words or the curse to Christ when the evidence for this does not exist. The dogwood legend almost certainly originated in North America since it fits the flowering time, the language, and the American folk-myth style. Dogwoods were not native to Israel or regions of the Middle East at the time of the Crucifixion.
[We] could find no reference to the dogwood legend before the 20th century. It appeared in The Victoria Advocate newspaper on Sunday April 18, 1954 (page 3B), and there are some allusions to it before this, but no ancient records of it.
~from "flowermeaning.com"
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ETYMOLOGICAL Meaning of the Dogwood Flower:
All Dogwood trees fall into the Cornus genus. Most people use the common name for the Flowering Dogwood, or Cornus florida, that is native to North America. This variety has been bred extensively by gardeners to develop different flower colors. The European version was originally called a whipple-tree, which evolved into dog-tree and eventually Dogwood. There is no conclusive link between the name and anything to do with dogs, but some language experts claim the name comes from a misspelling of dagwood. 'Dags' are sharpened bits of wood used as darts, arrow shafts, or skewers, and the wood of the Dogwood tree is ideal for this purpose. ~ "The etymology of the dogwood".

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All my artwork is registered copyright with all rights reserved: ©Pamela Smale Williams, ARTography by Pamela, and Image Wizards Photography.
Purchase of prints does not transfer reproduction rights.
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Uploaded

March 3rd, 2016

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