Ferns have long been given mythical and magical properties according to a myriad of folktales and popular culture. In West African folklore the fern presents as the symbol AYA, meaning resiliency and strength. It is said that the person adorned with the AYA symbol is someone who has endured adversities and overcome. In Japan, the fern known as Shida symbolises fertility, while in New Zealand it symbolises strength and enduring power. European examples include the burning of bracken which would bring rainfall, good fortune and luck or be used to ward off witches. In Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Shepherd's Daughter, ferns were imagined to restore sight that was once lost. (Baring-Gould and University of Connecticut Libraries, 1895)

The seeds of ferns in particular are given magical potential. Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, where it is said that whoever puts out 12 pewter plates in a wooded area would receive a single golden fern seed and that the person or peoples who collect that golden seed would become invisible. The true nature of the fern however, is that it does not flower or bear seeds, nor does it require birds or bees to pollinate; instead it reproduces through spores. Continuing its prehistoric journey to find the perfect temperature, moisture and light. Once found it begins to germinate and becomes an entirely different generation of plant before establishing itself as a fern; the favourable place often being in the shadows or where flowering plants would struggle to grow. This migration of spores is likely the reason for the fern’s mythology around invisibility. This idea is nuanced in Pollard’s themes around invisible histories, particularly how the global majority have influenced British culture. This highlight of black figures in British culture is resumed from ‘Seventeen of Sixty-Eight’ (2019), specifically in the use of Duratrans in ‘Three Drops of Blood’ depicting black figures from historical books that are otherwise overlooked. 

 

Conceivably, Black British people, including those who have historically lived in Devon, have had a similar existence to that of the fern of 18th and 19th centuries – and likewise the lace and bark boxes that appear in ‘Three Drops of Blood’. Like the migration of plants travelling across oceans and lands to become situated within rural Devon landscapes whether by choice or as part of Devon’s role in the transatlantic slave trade (Mackenzie and Stone, 1990) often becoming invisible or living in the shadow of more prominent imperial history but nonetheless finding favourable climates to grow into something new; this could be suggested as Black British culture.(1)

 

Those aware of Ingrid Pollard know that her work has always been overt in its positioning of global majority people, particularly black people in rural areas across Britain, alongside examining how black people have been represented throughout British history. Examples of such work include the photographic postcard ‘Wordsworth’s Heritage’ (1992),and ‘Seventeen of Sixty-Eight’ (2019) exploring the 68 UK pubs that feature ‘Black Boy’ in their name together, with prints, photographs and pub signs of black figures. Pollard continues to explore these themes with ‘Three Drops of Blood’, however, there is a subtlety to this examination of British culture that highlights the interaction between symbolism, ethnogeography and folklore, while also exploring class and rural industry. Pollard does this by delving into historical undercurrents of rural England such as the lace industry of Devon and folklore as well as collecting local oral histories from Northumberland such as being gifted the 19th century mourning bonnets alongside the mourning corset and matching skirt.(2)

 

Like global majority people and ferns, cloth and textiles have also become signifiers of travelling histories and, that lace in particular, has enmeshed multiple perspectives of British, African and Caribbean cultures into one historical narrative. This is reinforced in Christine Checinska’s ‘Aesthetics of Blackness? Cloth, Culture, and the African Diasporas’ (TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, 2018) which discusses how important cloth is to people of the African diaspora and its representation of that history.

 

Whilst having practical uses, cloth plays a significant role in ritual whether everyday or ceremonial, secular or spiritual. It becomes saturated with cultural meaning and memory as crafting techniques and family keepsakes are passed from one generation to the next. Cloth can be cut, worked, embellished, manipulated, and transformed, then folded, packed, and transported across the continents—on the move just as the people that make and use it are on the move.

 

What roots these themes so poignantly in ‘Three Drops of Blood’ is Pollard’s narration of local imperial histories with personal, oral histories. Pollard’s use of lace denotes the craft of lacemaking, which became a thriving industry in Honiton, producing what is known as Honiton lace. Bobbin Lace, said to have been introduced to England as early as 1538 by the Dutch according to The Lace Book (N. Hudson Moore, 1937) became a prominent influence in lace designs across England. Honiton lace in particular, became more established in the 18th century and rose to popularity in the Victorian era with Queen Victoria herself commissioning Honiton lace to be used for her wedding dress (Dalen, B. V, 2019). Being the royal lacemakers rooted Honiton’s significance in British culture, however, the importance is its visual references to the landscape of Devon and the uniqueness of the motifs used to create it such as the Devonia Spray and Spray of Fern. The fern is important because Flemish lace motifs commonly feature curled fiddleheads whereas Honiton lace features a distinctive uncurled fiddlehead fern motif.