Young women can pull achillea from the soil of a night-time graveyard. Preferably the grave of a young man, although any graveyard new to them will do. They must be silent. This is how I know it is a tale for women. The young women should tuck their prize – blooms, stalks, leaves, roots, grave dirt – under their pillows. They can wash their sheets in the morning but grave dirt is not so different from any other: all dirt is made from the dead. The achillea I’ve seen in graveyards is always white.
