By Rachael Leverton
I love hellebores. Their beautiful flowers in subtle colours brighten my garden at this time of year, hence they are also known as the Christmas rose or the Lenten Rose because they bloom from late winter to early spring. My elderly neighbour was admiring my dis-play last year and asked if I knew the folk story of The Christmas Hellebore Miracle. Well, I love a good story, especially one relat-ed to gardening so I asked her to tell me. In a forgotten corner of the world, shrouded in perpetual winter, there lay a village with an unpronounceable name. The villagers never knew the warmth of the sun, nor the vibrant hues of spring. Their world was an endless canvas of white, save for a brief season when the Christmas Star would appear in the heav-ens, casting a faint, ethereal glow. In the village there lived an old herbalist named Helmi. She was known for her wisdom in healing and her knowledge of plants. But of all the plants, Helmi cherished the Hellebores the most. These rare flowers, also known as Christmas Roses, bloomed in the heart of winter, defying the frost with their resilient beauty. One particularly harsh Christmas Eve, a mys-terious ailment fell upon the children of the village. One by one, they succumbed to a deep slumber, their breaths as faint as the whispering wind. The villagers were stricken with fear and sorrow, for no remedy seemed able to wake them. In desperation, the villagers turned to Helmi. The old herbalist thought deeply. She had read in ancient scrolls of a forgotten ritual, one that could summon the healing grace of the Christmas Star itself. But to perform it, she needed a bloom from the rarest of all the Hellebores, one kissed by the Christmas Star’s shining light. Under the watchful gaze of the Christmas Star, Helmi ventured into the heart of the fro-zen forest, guided only by the star’s gentle luminescence. Deep within the woods, she found a solitary Hellebore, its petals aglow with a celestial radiance. Carefully she plucked the bloom, whispering words of grati-tude. Returning to the village, Helmi began the ritual. She crushed the petals of the star-kissed Hellebore and mixed them with many herbs and snowmelt to create a potion of shimmering silver. One by one, she visited all the villagers’ houses, and used the potion to paint a tiny star on the forehead of each sleep-ing child. As the potion touched their skin, a miracle unfolded. The children began to stir, their cheeks flushing with life’s warmth. The vil-lagers, once cloaked in despair, now em-braced in jubilation. Their tears, once cold with sorrow, now warmed by relief. From that day forth, the villagers held a Hel-lebore festival every year on Christmas Eve with Helmi as their honoured guest. They planted the beautiful resilient little flowers all over the village throughout the year, and eve-ry Christmas Eve as the Star returned to the heavens, the villagers hung hellebore wreaths intertwined with stars on the doors of their houses. Then they would gather to sing carols of gratitude and hope, their voices carrying the tale of the little Hellebore that held the light of the stars in its petals and the love of a village in its roots. Isn’t that lovely? She said that her grandmoth-er told it to her as a child and she’s loved hel-lebores ever since.