The thistle brave, of old renown (2025)

Some sources suggest that this event occurred in the 11th century, at Denmarkfield outside Perth, while others place it confidently in October 1263, just before the Battle of Largs, when an invading fleet under King Haakon of Norway was defeated by the armies of the Scottish King Alexander III. But there’s no recorded evidence: the story may well be the product of a fertile imagination.

Researchers have long pondered the exact provenance of the thistle as an emblem of Scotland. Setting aside the wounded Norsemen theory, it’s easy to see how the plant’s razor-sharp spines and rugged hardiness would appeal to an embattled nation, especially when crowned with flowers of vivid purple, a colour reserved for monarchs. Most historians will only pin its origin as far back as 1470 or thereabouts, when King James III issued silver coins known as ‘thistle-head groats’. An inventory of personal items drawn up after James’s death includes “a covering of variand purpir tartan browdin [embroidered] with thrissilis [thistles] and a unicorne.”

James V’s daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, incorporated a thistle into the Great Seal of Scotland, from which wax seals for official documents were cast. During her exile in England, Mary embroidered a series of panels depicting animals and plants; one design shows a thistle being crushed beneath a monogram combining the letters of her name with those of Queen Elizabeth I. When the unfortunate Mary was executed at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, her grieving attendants planted thistles in her memory, and these (or their offspring) still bloom every year on the castle mound above the River Nene. They are known locally as ‘Queen Mary’s tears’.

By the beginning of the 17th century, thistles were being shaped by the hands of stonemasons and woodcarvers as recognisable Scottish emblems. To mark the Union of the Crowns in 1603, a thistle was coupled with an English rose in the heraldic badge of King James VI when he acceded to the throne of England. In 1687, King James VII and II introduced an order of chivalry known as The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, which opens up a new can of heraldic worms in the slightly obscure history of Scotland’s national flower.

When James VII established his new order of chivalry, it was claimed that he was reviving a tradition dating back to 786AD, when a battle took place between Achaius, a king of Scots, and Æthelstan, a king of East Anglia. At this purported battle, Achaius is said to have seen the cross of St Andrew appear in the sky, and after his victory he created the Order of the Thistle, with St Andrew as its patron saint. But Achaius is generally regarded as a legendary figure; if he existed at all, he would have died a century before Æthelstan. And there are other claimants to the early establishment of the Order, among them King David I of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, and James III (of the thistle-head groats).

The fact that there are numerous varieties of thistle has sparked debate about exactly which species is Scotland’s national flower. The original title-holder is considered to be the spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare), a native plant that is widespread throughout Scotland. However, a more modern interpretation focuses on the cotton thistle (Onopordum acanthium) which was probably introduced from Europe. Writing in Flora Britannica, naturalist Peter Marren explains that this was the species chosen by Sir Walter Scott to be carried in procession during King George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822; its neatly shaped head matches the stylised thistles of heraldry, and suits a multitude of modern-day logos and designs.

Carrying a thistle in procession is a practice that continues with the annual Common Riding, an old boundary-marking custom held every July at Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway. Four emblems, each mounted on a pole, are carried by bearers through the streets; these include a spade, a salted herring with a bannock, a floral crown, and a spear thistle (the last being an entire uprooted plant). The thistle is thought to represent “a warning to lairds and others not to meddle with the privileges of the people.”

Thriving on waste ground, the thistle was chosen by Iain Crichton Smith to convey desolation following the Highland clearances: “The thistles climb the thatch. Forever / this sharp scale in our poems / as also the waste music of the sea.” It does, however, have some value as a food plant: in the past, the peeled stems were boiled and then dipped in butter like asparagus. The leaves, beaten up or crushed in a mill to destroy the prickles, were widely used as a fodder for cattle and horses. Pillows were stuffed with thistledown, and the seeds of the milk thistle were pressed to extract an oil containing a natural antioxidant.

For the superstitious, thistles had additional benefits: the folklorist Richard Folkard wrote that “…the wild Thistle, carried about the person, possessed the magical property of averting all ills from the bearer,” and added that “to dream of being surrounded by Thistles is a lucky omen, portending that the dreamer will be rejoiced by some pleasing intelligence in a short time.” In his Folk-lore of Plants, the appropriately-named T F Thiselton-Dyer reported: “The thistle has been long in demand for counteracting the powers of darkness, and in Esthonia it is placed on the ripening corn to drive and scare away malignant demons.”

“So now, success we’ll to the Thistle drink,

Thy sons by land, and those who plough the main;

And may’st thou flourish till time’s longest link,

Untarnish’d, Scotia’s glory, still remain!”