Sapphire Blue: a sterile hybrid

Thirsty bees and wasps drinking from fountain pond - Norton Conyers, Yorkshire

 

 

 

Norton Conyers is believed to have been the inspiration for Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The author came here in 1839 and describes the secret staircase used by Mr Rochester as a short cut to the attic where Mrs Rochester was incarcerated so, when, a blocked staircase was discovered in 2004, it created much excitement. The author is also believed to have based her idea for the mad Mrs Rochester on one of the family's aunts who was ill and confined to a garret.

 

 

 

 

How Stean Gorge, Yorkshire

 

 

One cold winter day a fisherman had gone out to sea. It began to grow stormy when he was about to return and he had trouble enough to clear himself. He then saw, near his boat, and old man with a long gray beard, riding on a wave. The fisherman knew well that it was the merman he saw before him, and he knew also what it meant. 

 

“Uh, then, how cold it is!” said the merman as he sat and shivered, for he had lost one of his hose.

 

The fisherman pulled off one of his, and threw it out to him. The merman disappeared with it, and the fisherman came safe to land. Some time after this, the fisherman was again out at sea, far from land. All at once the merman stuck his head over the gunwale, and shouted out to the man in the boat,

“Hear, you man that gave the hose,

Take your boat and make for shore,

It thunders under Norway.”

The fisherman made all the haste he could to get to land, and there came a storm the like of which has never been known, in which many were drowned at sea.

 

The Fisher and the Merman
From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie, 1896

 

 

 

Bees working the Sea-Holly

 

 

'Sapphire Blue' is a garden cultivar with the largest flowers of any sea holly. It is not invasive. The wild form of E. planum is capable of being too aggressive in the Northwest, but 'Sapphire Blue' is a sterile hybrid.

 

Latter image and text swiped from Beautiful North Yorkshire

Folklore migrated from Seven Miles of Steel Thistles