Daffodil, the flower of March

Associated with Venus and water, daffodil is used to promote love, fertility, and luck.

Associated with Venus and water, daffodil is used to promote love, fertility, and luck.

Daffodil or “lent lily”, one of the early blooming flowers of spring and the flower most associated with the month of March, is a common name for the blossom which is a variety of those called “Narcissus.” It was said by the ancient Greeks to have bloomed where the youth Narcissus withered and died, having become infatuated with his own reflection in a pool. (The goddess Nemesis had cursed him in retaliation for his already self-obsessed and cruel disdain of the mountain nymph Echo. Echo had already been punished by the goddess Hera who had made it impossible for Echo to say anything other than repeat a word or two that someone else had spoken to her. Greek mythology is one big interconnected soap opera, isn’t it?!)

It is associated with the goddess Venus (because of Echo’s love for Narcisscus and Narcissus’ love for himself) and is therefore a “feminine” plant. The alchemists associated daffodil with the element water (perhaps because of its association with Narcissus’ death by a pool, even though the flower itself grows easily in meadows and woods).

If you carry daffodil, it will attract a lover to you. If you place fresh-cut daffodil in your bedroom, fetility will increase. If the bloom is plucked and carried next to your heart, it will attract good luck to you. Good luck and fetility being exactly what Narcissus was himself in short supply of, perhaps his flower is attempting to make amends for him and his bad behavior toward the nymph who wanted nothing more than to be his lover.

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Golden Alley

Number 22 along Golden Alley.

A view of Golden Alley.

Golden Alley, along one wall of the castle complex in Prague, began as the place where archers would be posted to defend the walls. Later, small — even TINY — houses were built alongside the wall to house the archers and musketeers on duty. Then, during the reign of Rudolph II, the alchemists supported by Rudolph were housed here as a curfew could be imposed and the gateways at each end of the alley locked. Thus, the alchemists could not escape in the night with the secrets of elemental transmutation and transformation they had discovered during the day. Hence, the name “Golden Alley” arose as a reference to the alchemists in pursuit of the great secrets of the elements.

Today, the tiny houses are used as gift shops. Number 22, a bookstore specializing in Kafka’s books, was used by the author as a study in which to do his writing.