Leek cultural significance

The leek is one of the civic emblems of Wales, beat forth with the adage (in Welsh, the adage is accepted as "Peter's leek", Cenhinen Bedr) on St. David’s Day. According to one legend, King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd ordered his soldiers to analyze themselves by cutting the vegetable on their helmets in an age-old action adjoin the Saxons that took abode in a leek field. The Elizabethan artist Michael Drayton stated, in contrast, that the attitude was a accolade to Saint David, who ate alone leeks if he was fasting. Whatever the bark, the leek has been accepted to be a attribute of Wales for a continued time; Shakespeare, for example, refers to the custom of cutting a leek as an “ancient tradition” in Henry V. In the play, Henry tells the Welsh administrator Fluellen that he, too, is cutting a leek “for I am Welsh, you know, acceptable countryman.” The 1985 and 1990 British one batter bill buck the architecture of a leek in a coronet, apery Wales.

Alongside the added civic floral emblems of countries in the Commonwealth (including the English Tudor Rose, Scottish thistle, Irish shamrock, Canadian maple leaf, and Indian lotus), the Welsh leek appeared on the accession clothes of Elizabeth II. It was advised by Norman Hartnell; if Hartnell asked if he could barter the leek for the added aesthetically adorable Welsh daffodil, he was told no.

Perhaps the a lot of arresting use of the leek, however, is as the cap brand of the Welsh Guards, a regiment aural the Household Division of the British Army.

In Romania, the leek is aswell broadly advised a attribute of Oltenia, a actual arena in the southwestern allotment of the country.