Виктория Зонова
Flower legends
Amaryllis
In ancient times, there lived a beautiful nymph Amaryllis, who, together with her friends, had fun spending her time.
Every day was interesting in its own way: the girls chatted incessantly, burst into laughter, danced, decorated themselves with wreaths of flowers of fabulous beauty and listened to the melodious sounds of the pipe. Where Amaryllis ' light foot stepped, wonderful flowers with a special fragrance bloomed, filling the forest air with their fragrance. Even the birds envied the melodious voice of the young nymph when she sang, sitting on the bank of the stream. Amaryllis was very pretty.
But the beauty turned out to have a cruel heart. The charming nymph loved to captivate with her beauty a gaping shepherdess or an ordinary passerby (at that time, the gods still descended to earth to amuse themselves among mortals). And it was never destined for the poor young man who had ever seen Amaryllis to fall in love with another girl: he was dying of longing for unearthly beauty.
And the nymph laughed at the unfortunate and shared with her friends her next victory. And the number of such victims of unhappy love for the nymph grew inexorably. Guys stopped getting married, and earthly girls did not find husbands for themselves. Children stopped appearing in the white light, and people were on the verge of extinction. And the beauty still did not let up, she, as before, charmed men.
The gods saw this and decided that if they did not stop Amaryllis, soon there would not be a single person left on earth. Everyone will be in love with the young nymph and will die of longing for her.
And they called the god of autumn – the god of withering-to punish the sorceress. God came down to earth and, seeing Amaryllis, fell in love with her. The god of autumn realized that it would be difficult for him to get rid of a beautiful girl and decided to turn the nymph Amaryllis into a beautiful flower.
He took him to the remote desert of South Africa, away from people, and endowed him with deadly power – a poison that could kill anyone who dared to disrupt the wonderful creature. From now on, at the beginning of autumn, the amaryllis flower bloomed in the desert lands of Africa, which can only be admired from a distance, but it is impossible to touch it.
Centuries passed, amaryllis decorated the dreary desert with its amazing flowers, delighting the god of autumn with its flowering. But in the depths of the flower, the soul of a beautiful nymph continued to live, who promised herself that she would no longer be so cruel to young men.
But people were afraid to touch the poisonous flower and avoided it. Amaryllis still hoped and waited that there would be a person who would love her in the form of a fairy flower, and then the spell of the god of autumn would fall.
Once in those parts there was a young scientist who was looking for new plant species to create a medicine for terrible diseases. When he saw the amaryllis flower, he fell in love with it without memory, dug it out of the soil and carefully transported it to Russia.
He planted a magic flower at home in the most convenient and well-lit place, so that Amaryllis would feel comfortable at home. Every day, the scientist spent hours admiring his inaccessible lover, patiently caring for the fastidious beauty. And one day a miracle happened, which the young nymph had been waiting for for a long time. The young man's love for the flower turned out to be so devoted that the spell cast by the god of autumn on Amaryllis was dispelled.
At night, when the whole house was asleep, a beautiful girl came out of the flower.
This was no longer the old frivolous nymph, but a young dark-haired sorceress with a soft heart. Having known all the hardships of loneliness, she did not want to leave her savior to die of longing for her.
When leaving, Amaryllis kept a beautiful flower in memory of herself, which still blooms in early autumn.
Astra
An American legend.
A young hunter from the Onaida Indian tribe fell in love with a girl, but she remained indifferent to him. Then he asked her, and if he knocks a star out of the sky, will she become his bride?
None of the young men of the tribe offered her such a gift. The beauty considered the hunter a braggart, but agreed. And when the Indians of other tribes heard about it, they began to laugh at the young man. But he did not give up and told the proud woman to come to the meadow in the evening.
When the stars lit up, all the young people from the tribe gathered to see how the hunter was going to fulfill his promise. The young man aimed his bowstring at the sky, and after a few moments a star shattered into many sparks in the night sky, struck by the mark arrow of the young hunter.
God was angry at a mere mortal who dared to knock down the stars from the sky. After all, if other lovers follow his example, then there will be no stars left in the sky at all, and the moon is unlikely to survive. He sent a terrible storm to the earth. A violent hurricane raged for three days and three nights.
When the storm subsided, no one could find the daredevil who knocked down a star from the sky. It turned into a small flower, which the Indians gave the name "shooting star".
The Volga legend.
Once upon a time there lived a khan and he had a beautiful daughter, Astra.
The girl loved to look at the stars at night, and the stars loved her. But the princess fell ill with an unknown disease, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not cure her. The Polar Star called her to her: "You have a kind soul, your place is with us."
The girl died, and immediately flowers of unprecedented heavenly beauty bloomed, ordinary people called them asters in honor of the beautiful princess. And the inconsolable khan built a beautiful city and named it Astrakhan in honor of his daughter.
A Greek legend.
Persephone is the wife of Hades, who ruled the underworld. He forcibly took her to wife, stealing her from Demeter's mother. The gods ordered the young wife to spend autumn and winter in her husband's abode, so year after year she sank underground with the arrival of cold weather.
And at the end of August, the unfortunate goddess noticed a young man and a girl in love, who were exchanging kisses. Persephone, deprived of love and soon forced to go to Hades, sobbed in despair. Her tears turned into stardust, falling to the ground and turned into wonderful asters.
