The Tragedy of the Spider Lily
If you’ve ever come across one of these exquisite floral beings, you would have paused. This flower is striking, elegant, and intimidating. She stands tall and leafless, her long stem rising from the ground and at the top, sits a beautiful crown of flowers with long tendrils stretched out around her. She demands respect and space to display her opulence.
The Spider Lily has many different names, her Latin name is Lycoris radiata, but she’s been known as hell flower, red magic lily, equinox flower, and the flower of death.
For now, we will call her Lycoris and she’s much more than just a pretty flower. In every inch of her botanical body, poison runs through her veins. Her bulbous root, elegant leaves, and crown of a flower all contain a toxic alkaloid called lycorine, which if ingested will cause abdominal pain, salivation, shivering, nausea, vomiting, and at high doses and in severe cases; paralysis. Due to this dark characteristic, Lycoris flora were planted around graves to prevent any animals from digging up and devouring the dead.
Lycoris flowers do not rise with spring, nor does she bloom in summer. She blossoms with the curtain of autumn, after all her leaves have wilted. In Chinese mythology there is a legend of this flower’s uniqueness. She is surrounded in a myth of death, loss and grief, because behind her beauty lies a tragic tale.
The Tragedy of The Spider Lily
Lycoris wasn’t always this way, there used to be seasons where she was whole. A brief moment in time where her leaves and flowers would cross paths and in that peak of her magic she was well protected by two loyal elves. One, named Mañju, who protected the flower, while the other, named Saka, protected the leaves.
Most elves tasked with guarding sacred flora worked together in harmony; the leaves catching sunlight and providing nutrients to the flower who created seed and pollen for new life.
Lycoris was different, she bid her time, storing her energy from her leaves all season and waiting until autumn to blossom. She preferred to present her beauty then, after all the other flora have begun to lose vitality and wilt. Until they are but echoes of beauty and she alone would shine, like a bright blossom of fire in the field. An etheral and gorgeous suprise for all of her spectators. A season where she would be the most beautiful flower.
Mañju and Saka quite enjoyed the whims of Lycoris. For all her intimidating pride, the flower was immensely charming and kind to her elven retainers. Although they missed out on the luxury of elven companionship, they took great pride and care in protecting the most magical flower of the realm.
There would be an occasional year; when the season shifted to autumn, where the elves would cross paths. They never had much time for conversation, but the two would court each other through the language of harvest gift giving.
Some years, Saka would ask the bees to send honey and delights to Mañju during the autumn bloom, and Mañju would collect extravagant crystals and leave dusting of glittering pollen on the stem to decorate for Sakas return.
Naturally, as centuries passed the elves grew increasingly curious about each other. Lycoris quite enjoyed the banter between the two. She was an ancient entity and it gave her joy to watch the two elves flirt. She’d never admit it, but she quite cherished taking part in gift ideas and seasonal surprises. On quiet nights, Lycoris indulged the elves in story telling. She’d illustrate to Mañju stories of Saka; how during stormy days, when it felt like her stems would break, her protector would embrace Lycoris through the harsh winds and rain to keep her stem unbent and graceful. How she would watch in awe as the beautiful Saka toiled in the sunlight with the strength of a boar, would turn new soil over her root bulb and collect compost for nourishment. She loved that Saka would pluck her more unattractive leaves and massage the new growth to ensure that Lycoris would have the strongest vegetation to collect nutrients for her seed.
The season of bloom passed and Mañju and the bloom returned to hibernation, and Saka and the leaves would awaken from theirs. Lycoris of course would tell the tales of Bloom. Entertaining Saka with stories of Mañju. It was her favorite time of year after all. She adored Mañju’s keen eye for beauty. Mañju would make sure the sunlight hit her flower perfectly during her blossom. Using a methodical placement of rocks and crystals to bounce the light onto her blossom the most flattering ways. She took pride when humans and animals would stop to stare at her. Mañju would tend to her stamens, making sure her pollen was fluffy, healthy and glittering and that her petals were shined and perfectly curled. Her time with Saka made her feel protected, vital and strong, while her time with Mañju made her feel confident. fertile and opulent.
Both the elves were smitten, they listened to her stories with admiration, but there was always a twinge of melancholy tugging at the heart. A love that could never be. Duties that could not be abandoned. The elves fantasied of meeting the other, dancing together, and telling stories of the flower herself. Lycoris would chuckle, but then sigh, warning them they could never meet in this life since, by the laws of nature, they were never to leave their posts as guardians of the natural order. Her beauty for all its vanity was a set value within the law of nature. The flower advised the elves with an ancient wisdom. The wisdom of an entity bound to nature to live a cycle of endless lives.
“Keep your bond strong. Your life is but a blink of my eternity. In moments of time the two of you will die and cease to be elves. My gift to you for your loyal service will be thousands of lives wrapped in each others arms. And when those lives end, there I will be at your graves leading you to one another.”
Of course, the elves were heartbroken but took comfort in the advice of the flower. They were only elves in this life and they must abide to the laws of nature as they are guardians. In the next life, they could be together.
The Visit at Midnight (1832). E.T. Parris
So, during Autumn on the odd years when the bloom and leaves would pass each other, and Mañju and Saka would only exchange smiles and quick wishes of good season. Centuries passed and moments of time for an ancient flower were excoriating to an elf in love.
There was a hunger welling up inside of them. One that went unnoticed until it turned into a ravage, a lust. The elves wanted to touch, to be embraced, to indulge in hours of conversation. This hunger would grow year after year until one season, as the two passed, they decided to make a pact. They would both abandon their posts to be together for just one night.
Lycoris in all her ancient wisdom pleaded with the two. The Sun Goddess would not be pleased. Her eyes touched all the surface of the earth. She would see order was disrupted. She would feel it in her very being. The elves disagreed. They thought they’d figured it out. If the elves met at night,The Sun Goddess would be none the wiser. She is the mother of all and surely she could have compassion in the laws of love.
Lycoris was gentle to disagree with the elves. She was much older and not only did she understand the laws of nature, but also of carelessness in love. The Sun Goddess is a complex being, her duties in nature are to spread warmth and life to those she encounters. The Sun is always deeply concerned with the state of the world around her which makes her a creature of routine, she demands balance. Lycoris explained there is no doubt that the Sun is a force of nature. She is not an entity to understand benevolence. The Sun is quick to temper and makes decisions at the speed of light, these are never to be reversed.
The elves disregarded the warning, the idea of being together was worth the risk. This made Lycoris sway with anxiety and as the season shifted and it came time for the elves paths to cross again. As her last leaves were slowly wilting and her floral bud started to form, the two elves met in the middle of seasons passing to stand face to face.
Time seemed to stop. There was a shift in the air as the two gazed into each others eyes, close enough to touch. The tug of nature pulled at them and whipped around their bodies like a violent wind trying to usher the seasons forward. These elves could only bare the burden and stare in awe at the immense beauty of each other. The mythical guardians of the Spider Lily. For centuries they protected same flower, meeting only in passing, catching dreamlike glances of the other, communicating in a seasonal code of gifts. Mañju smiled and reached out to Saka warmly. The two met and fell into a deep embrace.
This was the kind of embrace that makes one shake with anxiety, a meeting of two souls who were destined to be apart. Like a current it was powerful, exhilarating, and for the elves, it was magical. That night they’d spend dancing, talking, and laughing with one another, away from the morning gaze of the Sun Goddess.
However, as soon the dew of dawn formed, the Sun Goddess was awake with hot fury. She was restless all night. This small current the elves had made when they met had grown into a crashing waves onto the mind of the Goddess. They had disrupted the balance along with the goddess’s divine slumber and she was not pleased.
She blazed across the land in a blinding golden light, scouring the earth furiously, looking for any sign of imbalance and demanding to know what kept her awake. She searched in the ocean waves, the deserts dunes, the mountain peaks, finding nothing. The creatures of the earth hid away, feeling the hot rage of the Sun in her erratic state. She was unstoppable, angry, and very tired. It was only when she passed over Lycoris and her field of flowers when felt imbalance and paused. The flower stood tall and prideful as ever, but she was unprotected, her magic unbottled and unguarded, spilling out over the land in waves of a stagnant power.
The Goddess looked curiously down on the flower, who wilted slowly in her heat. She was curious to know why Lycoris had not blossomed in her due time. She could not understand why the most vain flower in the land would set aside her pride and beauty to miss her bloom, the peak of her magic. Lycoris did not answer, she only bowed respectfully, withering in the presence of the Sun. The Goddess was furious. Demanding to know where the flowers autumnal guardian had gone. Lycoris, along with the rest of the ecosystem remained in a terrifying silence. She blazed and screamed for answers, slowly burning Lycoris and her f.
In protection of the flower, the elves quickly emerged from their hiding place together. Their hands interlocked and heads bowed shamefully in front of this blazing entity. The Sun was so bright and wrathful, the elves could not look at her but only tremble in her presence. They begged her to pare the flower and her fields. Admitting they were warned of this outcome. She turned to Lycoris, reprimanding the flower for encouraging this union and for her silence on the matter.
The Sun, in a haze of a sleepless night and fit of anger decided the elves had betrayed the laws of nature and could not be trusted to carry out their duties as long as they were together. The elves sobbed and begged at the feet the Goddess. They were in love! Surely, she could understand and allow them to continue passing each other silently as they used to. The Goddess was livid. She had no capacity for mercy in her wrath and no understanding of love, only order. She raised her hands, placing a strong curse on the elves and Lycoris.
The leaves of Saka may never meet the flowers of Mañju again. That was it. The two were fated to never meet again. Not in this life, or any. They would never pass one another, never smile to each other, never exchange glances. They would bound to a maze of the souls, never to meet again.
The curse took its course, separating the two for the rest of that life, and the flower, Lycoris, suffered as well. What was once her prideful preference of bloom was now a shameful curse of nature for the flower. Her leaves would now wilt well before her bloom, leaving her a bare, plain stem until her blossom. The pain of sadness she felt for the fate of her elves and her bitterness for this cursed characteristic manifested centuries later into a tangible poison that, to this day, runs through her veins, root, and flower as she mourns the fate of the lovers who so loyally protected her.
It was said that after death, the couple met in the afterlife. They vowed to meet each other after reincarnation. However, neither of them would be able to keep their word as the curse of The Sun followed the elves for lifetimes.
It is said that if you were to meet a person that you will never see again, the flowers of Manjusaka will grow along the path they walked as they departed. To this day, Lycoris is said to keep her promise. Growing in fields where the dead are lain to rest, guiding the spirits to their next life, secretly hoping to stumble across the souls of her guardians to one day guide them to a place where they can finally be together.
Written and interpreted by Sasha Abiaad
References:
Nualláin, F. &O. (2019, June 19). Tracing the roots of folk and fairy lore behind everyday plants. Retrieved from
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/outdoorsandgarden/tracing-the-roots-of-folk-and-fairy-lore-behind-everyday-plants-931806.html.
Folklard, Richard (June 1884). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics. Retrieved from
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44638/44638-h/44638-h.htm#chapter-3