The red pheasant’s eye of the late summer cornfields was still called rose-a-ruby by country maidens in Chambers’s day. They believed that a girl who had no sweetheart before it went out of flower would have to wait another year, until it bloomed again. Hone’s floral directory gives the autumnal pheasant’s eye to 31 August, and his Year Book notes pheasants’ eyes in flower on that day.
Rose-a-ruby
Printed under 31 August
Lore and belief
country maidens still call rose-a-ruby, believing that if they have not a sweetheart before it goes out of flower, they will have to wait for another year until it blooms again.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 152; Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, col. 1146; Hone's Year Book, col. 1022. Read the original
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