The daisie, or else the eie of the daie.--Chaucer
Perhaps that is why the daisy is sometimes also known as marguerite, and still stands for "innocence." Or that nickname along with another, "fair maids of France," may be traced to an earlier Margaret--of Anjou. That 15-year-old princess chose a spray of daisies as her motif when she wed King Henry VI of England in 1445.
In the days of chivalry, a suitor often wore a daisy, and the courted maiden would don a garland of the flowers to indicate her answer. In Hamlet, Ophelia gives the queen a daisy, purportedly to reprove the royal female's "light and fickle love which ought not to expect constancy in a husband."
According to Celtic legend, the white blooms spring from the spirits of children who died at birth. And the weaving of daisy chains has always been a popular pastime with the younger set. So the flower came to stand for the innocence of the most Holy Child.
In much old literature, however, the daisy indicated is the European bellis perennis rather than the oxeye daisy (chrysanthemum leucanthemum) which is more common here in the States. But the pristine oxeye seems a better symbol for purity than the pinkish bellis. In the Rape of Lucerne, Shakespeare writes, "Without the bed her other faire hand was/ On the green coverlet; whose perfect white/ Showed like an April daisy in the grass. . ."
In this country, the oxeye daisy blooms in late May and June. Its official name derives from the Greek "chrysos" ("gold"), "anthemum" ("flower"), and "leuc" ("white"). The common name, on the other hand, comes from the Anglo-Saxon "daeges-eage" or "day's eye."
The flower has a host of other nicknames, including bruisewort, goldens, gowan, maudlinwort, dun daisy, moon penny, Balder's brow, Dutch morgan, poverty weed, dog blow, and priest's collar. Dun daisy derives from the flower's association with the Anglo-Saxon thunder god, moon penny from its supposed link with the goddess Artemis, and Balder's brow from its connection with the Teutonic deity of peace and light. Later, it was renamed maudelyn or maudlin in affectionate reference to St. Mary Magdalen.
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