Daisy Meaning: The 'Day's Eye' Flower and the Daisy Wheel

"Daisy" names two very different things. One is the familiar little flower of British lawns, Bellis perennis, whose name means "day's eye". The other is the daisy wheel, a six-petalled rosette drawn with a pair of compasses and scratched into old buildings, the most common of the marks historians call ritual protection marks. Both have long histories.

The day's eye

The name "daisy" comes from Old English dæges ēage, "day's eye", because the flower opens its petals in the morning and closes them at dusk. Geoffrey Chaucer praised it in the fourteenth century as the flower he loved above all others, and it has been a symbol of freshness, innocence and simple joy ever since. Children's daisy chains and "she loves me, she loves me not" games belong to the same affectionate tradition.

The daisy wheel

The daisy wheel, or hexafoil, is a geometric figure: overlapping arcs drawn with compasses produce six rounded petals within a circle. Historic England, which launched a national appeal to record such marks in 2016, describes it as the most common type of apotropaic, or evil-averting, mark. They are found near doorways, windows and fireplaces in churches, barns and houses, many dating from about 1550 to 1750. Because the figure can be drawn as a single endless line, it was supposedly thought to confuse and trap evil spirits.

A debated interpretation

Not every scholar accepts the "witch mark" reading. The architectural historian Jennifer Alexander of the University of Warwick has argued that many daisy wheels on stone buildings are simply masons practising geometry with compasses. Both explanations may be true of different marks.

Daisy and seed of life

The six-petalled rosette is closely related to the overlapping-circle patterns now called the Seed of Life, which shows how old and widespread this simple compass geometry is.

The daisy in jewellery

Whether flower or wheel, the daisy is a small, bright symbol: of fresh beginnings for the flower, and of an old habit of protecting a home for the wheel. You can see the AURYN Daisy design, or read our guide to flower symbolism.