There's simply no denying it. Campanula, more commonly known as bellflowers, are shaped like, well, bells. And although you won't catch them ringing, bellflowers tell quite a story: from Satan to saints to witches. Including one of the oldest happy endings we have.

There are almost 300 campanula species, but the most common is rotundifolia, commonly called the English harebell, or the Scottish bluebell. What wasn't so common perhaps, was what people said about it. Some called it the bell of the Auld Man, or Devil. Anyone wishing to avoid bad luck was warned not to pick it and to never bring it indoors. It was also known as "witches' thimbles." The oft repeated story was that witches used the flowers to transform themselves into hares and even blended the juice into their infamous "flying ointment."

It’s somewhat ironic then, that another campanula species, campanula medium, should be dedicated to St. Augustine, England's first Archbishop of Canterbury in the county of Kent. St. Augustine began his conversion of the English in 597. He started at the top, with King Ethelbert of Kent. It could be the flowers were dedicated to Augustine because they grew so profusely in Ethelbert's home base. Or it could be the English were having the last laugh. After all, the people of Rochester responded to the saint by throwing fish heads at him.

In any case, campanula medium became widely known as Canterbury bells. However they earned their names, by the late 1500s several varieties of campanula were garden staples.

These were to remain the bellflower staples until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when additional campanulas from Greece and the Caucasus mountains began to arrive.

There's no mistaking the native harebell. Suspended on slender stalks, the gentle bobbing motion of this flower has captured the attention of some of the most famous poets on both sides of the Atlantic. In St. Agnes' Eve, John Keats wrote The pliant harebell swinging in the breeze/On some gray rock. Later, Christina Rosetti wrote: Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth/Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth. It also prompted Emily Dickinson to contemplate the age-old question, ‘will he still respect me in the morning?’

The tubers of campanula ampunculus (rampion) were, until about a century ago, a popular vegetable in Europe.
Which leads us to, as promised, the fairy tale:

There once lived a witch who grew rampion in her garden. The woman next door, who just happened to be pregnant, had severe cravings for the rampion and urged her husband to fetch some. What was he to do? The husband climbed over the high garden wall and plucked the rampion from its bed. But no sooner had his wife devoured the tasty tuber, than she was asking for more. The next time, the husband was not so lucky, and he was caught red-handed by one very unhappy witch. Forced to make a desperate deal, the husband promised the witch she could have his child when it was born. So it was that the witch showed up to claim the baby the day it arrived. And a lovely baby it was, already with a full head of hair. The witch named her Rapunzel.

Over the years Rapunzel grew into a sweet-voiced creature with flowing tresses. And despite locking her in a stairless tower in the middle of a forest, the witch could not keep Rapunzel from a wandering prince and the happy ending that was due any child named for an edible root