This flower was known everywhere and loved by everyone - in Ancient Greece, in Medieval Europe, and in our time. His Latin name "Bellis perennis" is used in science - in botany and pharmacology, his Greek name "Margarites" is known to everyone simply as a female name. He was loved by kings, knights and commoners. This flower was honored with the creation of ancient legends about it; it is present in the paintings of the great old masters and in the masterpieces of poets and troubadours. Like an oracle, he consoled poor girls who were bewitching their fate with an impatient question: “loves or doesn’t love...”. And shortly before the revolution of 17 in the countries of Northern Europe (Sweden, Russia and Finland), this flower became one of the symbols of May Day spring warmth and goodness, when one could try to shower grief not with hats, but with flowers. This flower is the European sister of our chamomile, the daisy.
Flower of the Blessed Virgin Mary
I
There is a very beautiful legend about the origin of this small white or pinkish flower, which forms beautiful borders in our flower beds and beautiful groups on the green lawn.
They say that the Most Holy Theotokos, wishing one winter to please little Jesus and give him a wreath of flowers, not finding any in the cold-beaten fields, decided to make them herself artificially from silk. And so, making various flowers, she made some that especially pleased the baby Jesus. These were small daisies made of yellow silk material and thick white threads. While preparing them, the Most Holy Theotokos more than once pricked her fingers with a needle, and drops of her blood stained these threads in places with a reddish or pinkish color. That is why, in addition to white petals, there are also pinkish petals and on the underside they are often colored red.
Baby Jesus liked these flowers so much that he kept them all winter like a jewel, and when spring came, he planted them in the valley of Nazareth and began to water them. And suddenly these artificial flowers came to life, took root, began to grow and, growing more and more, moving from one country to another, soon spread throughout the entire earth. And now, as if in memory of this miracle, these lovely flowers bloom from early spring until late autumn, and there is no country in the world where they cannot be found.
II
According to another legend, daisies are also called “flowers of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and the origin of this name is told as follows.
When the Blessed Virgin Mary, upon receiving the good news from the Archangel Gabriel, went to inform her relative Elizabeth about this, she had to walk for a long time through the mountains and valleys of Judea. And so, when she walked through the fields, wherever the foot of the future Mother of God touched the ground, small shiny white flowers grew everywhere, so that her entire path, marked by them, formed, as it were, a whole flower path. These flowers were our modest white daisies. The white petals surrounding them in the form of radiance resembled the glory of God, and the golden center was the sacred fire that burned in the heart of Mary.
III
In another version, it happened like this.
When the Blessed Virgin Mary, while still a child, looked at the sky at night, dotted with countless brilliant stars, she expressed a desire: how nice it would be if all these wonderful stars became earthly flowers and she could play with them.
Then the stars, hearing this wish, were immediately reflected in the brilliant drops of dew that covered the ground plants, and when the next morning the sun illuminated the earth, it was all dotted, like stars, with white flowers. The Blessed Virgin was delighted, adorned herself with them and said that they would forever be her favorite flowers and let them be called the flowers of Mary.
Since then, the legend concludes, these flowers contain happiness, and they are asked about it, counting and tearing off their petals.
These are the Christian legends about the origin of the daisy, but this flower also has pagan legends.
LiveInternetLiveInternet
Sunday, June 07, 2022 21:58 + in quote book
There is still debate about the favorite flowers of the Mother of God. Followers of different legends bring different plants as gifts to the church. Near the icons of the Virgin Mary you can often find white roses, orchids, lilies and chrysanthemums. And it is not surprising that in Christianity the white color has a sacred meaning, pristineness and spiritual perfection. These are the qualities that Saint Mary possessed, and these flowers are brought to her images by believers. However, the flowers depicted on holy icons were not necessarily loved by the Mother of God herself. According to a number of ancient legends, Mary’s supposed favorite flowers are lilies. According to one version, Gabriel was holding a white lily in his hands when the messenger of God appeared to Mary with the news of her pregnancy. However, there is another legend about lilies. According to her, flowers began to grow for the first time on earth in those places where Eve’s pure tears of repentance fell on her. She had already been expelled with her husband from the wonderful divine garden and was very sorry for the offense she had committed. Seeing this, the Lord performed a miracle and created beautiful flowers from the tears of the sinner. Then it turns out they have nothing to do with St. Mary.
In fact, Jesus' young mother made her favorite flowers with her own hands. At the time of the birth of the first child, it was a cold season outside; there could not be any vegetation at such a time. In order to entertain the baby, the Mother of God began to make small flowers from what was at hand. She wanted to make them white as a sign of the newborn’s purity, but when the needlewoman was sewing the woven petals, she was often distracted by the baby and severely pricked her fingers until they bled. As a result, the flowers turned out not white, but red. The baby was not upset at all. He looked at them for a long time, lying in the cradle. The grown-up Christ continued to twirl his mother’s gift in his hands; he simply adored simple flowers, which we now know as daisies. One day he decided to plant artificial flowers in the ground and the power of his faith was so great that the flowers took root, took root and bloomed with renewed vigor. All the neighbors came to admire the unprecedented plants and were sincerely surprised at such a miracle of the Lord God. This beautiful legend is very similar to a true story. Many young mothers make their own toys for their little ones, especially if they are short on money. But there is no scientific explanation for the miracle of their revival, nor is there any confirmation. But they are not needed, because you just need to believe in a miracle. And in churches, sometimes near the iconostasis, among the snow-white bouquets of expensive flowers, you can see small, simple red flowers. They are like drops of blood from the wounded fingers of the Virgin Mary falling onto a snow-white canvas of orchids, roses and lilies. Source[/td]
| Categories: | Miscellaneous |
Cited 1 time Liked by 2 people
Like share
0
Like
- 2
I liked the post - Quoted
- 0
Saved
- Add to quote book
- 0
Save to links
Liked2
0
Pre-Christian legends
Latin legend of Bellis perennis
- to the eternal beauty The Latin legend says: when one day the lovely forest dryad Belides was dancing and frolicking with her beloved Ephigeus, she attracted the attention of the Etruscan god of the seasons - the elderly Vertumnus, who wanted to take her with him at all costs.
In despair and powerlessness, the poor thing, not knowing what to do, how to get rid of the old man who was relentlessly pursuing her, turned to the immortals to save her, and the gods, taking pity on her, turned her into a pretty wild flower. This flower was called Bellis perennis - eternal beauty, which is now used to designate our daisy in science.
Ancient Greek legend.
According to another legend, she arose from the ashes of Alceste, the wife of the Thessalian king Admetus, who sacrificed her life to save the life of her husband.
This Admetus was the favorite of Apollo, who begged the goddesses of fate Moira not to let him die at the appointed hour if anyone else agreed to die for him. When the hour of his death comes, none of his friends dares to die for him. Even elderly parents do not want to sacrifice their lives for him. Only his faithful wife Alceste refuses the full joy of life and dies for him. Then Hercules, who came to him while performing his exploits, having accidentally learned about this great selfless and generous act, decides to bring her back to life at any cost. He goes to Hades and asks Thanatos, the god of death, to bring her back to earth; but since she cannot return in human form, she appears in the form of a flower - a daisy.
Let's say by the way that the flower got its name from the Greek word margarites, meaning “pearl,” since its countless white flowers covering the green meadows really seem like pearls.
Daisy in Germany and Russia
In the northern sagas, the daisy was dedicated to the goddess of spring, and a garland of its flowers was wrapped around the cup of this goddess every spring. In addition, its flowers were sacrificed to the goddess of love - Freya, and therefore she was often given the name of the flower of love and the bride of the sun.
In this last name and the sacrifice of the flower to the goddess of love lies, according to many scientists, the origin of the well-known role of this flower as a love oracle. The daisy, apparently, begins to play this role of a flower for fortune telling - “loves it, doesn’t like it” from time immemorial, and moreover, not only in one particular state, but in almost all Western European ones, with the exception of England. In German there is even a special popular name for it - “Maasliebchen”, i.e. a measure of love, which dates back to ancient times and is based on an ancient children's game associated with tearing off its petals.
Having gone far into a forest or field and fearing that their parents would scold them, children in Germany usually took, and even now take, such a daisy and, tearing off its petals, wonder whether they will be scolded at home or not, saying: “Beatings, scolding, kind words.” And the word at which the last petal is torn off should mean what awaits them.
In a word, they do the same thing that we see our young people (especially young ladies) doing now, tearing off the petals and saying: “He loves, he doesn’t love, he will spit, he will kiss, he will press him to his heart, he will send him to hell,” and what was deduced even Goethe in Faust, when, walking in the garden with Faust, Margarita picks a daisy and, tearing off its petals, whispers: “
He loves, no: He loves, no; He likes…"
Only in our time, this oracle is more often served not by a small daisy, called paquerette in French, but by a beautiful large field daisy (in Russian - popovnik), which in France is called a daisy, with a yellow center and white large rays, which has much fewer petals , and these petals are much larger, so, therefore, it is easier to pick them off, and the result can be achieved faster. If we are not mistaken, the same daisy occurs in the scene in Faust.
In addition to Germany, the little daisy also played the role of a love oracle among the rural population of many provinces of France, and in Normandy, since time immemorial, there has even been a song: “Daisy, little flower, red around the edges and with a green border, reveal (tell) the fate of my love.” . This song was accompanied by tearing off petals and telling fortunes from them.
However, this method of fortune telling was especially developed in the Middle Ages, when instead of a daisy they often even resorted to knots on a randomly plucked blade of grass, the number of which also determined the fate awaiting the fortuneteller.
Flower of knights and troubadours
In general, the daisy played a significant role at this time, especially among the knights. And the knight, whose beloved agreed to give him her heart, received the right to depict a daisy on his shield. If the beloved did not want to tell him “yes” or “no”, and only seemed to be inclined towards this, then in response to the love he expressed, she gave him a wreath of daisies, which in the medieval language of flowers meant “I’ll think about it” . And such a modest, even funny, in our opinion, wreath instilled strong hope in the heart of the knight, causing his heart to beat stronger, and the knight himself to show miracles of courage and even sacrifice his life.
Especially this poetic, dreamy love, which sometimes forced one to perform amazing feats and not spare one’s life, reigned during the time of the troubadours, when the worship of the lady of the heart reached, so to speak, its apogee. At this time, the game of outright daisy arose in France - fortune telling by its petals. Looking through the chronicles of that time, every now and then you come across stories about these fortune-telling. In addition, even the very image of a daisy, due, perhaps, to the similarity of its name with the name of many women distinguished in the Middle Ages by their beauty or some other qualities, was considered at that time the height of grace and expression of respect.
Thus, they say that at a gala dinner given by Charles the Bold on the day of his marriage to the English Princess Margaret, a miracle of mechanics of that time appeared - a machine gun in the shape of a unicorn. On the back of this fabulous animal was a leopard, holding a shield with the state emblem of England in one paw and a daisy in the other. Having circled the table, the unicorn stopped in front of the duke, and the knight accompanying him, taking this daisy from the leopard’s paw, gave it to the duke, making a witty pun related to the princess and the flower.
A similar chivalrous greeting was expressed to Margaret, daughter of Francis I, when, having married Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy, she arrived in her husband’s homeland. As soon as she set foot on Savoy soil, she was immediately presented on behalf of her husband with an elegant golden wedding basket, decorated with precious stones, all filled with lovely white daisies and tied with a beautiful pink ribbon with the inscription: “Every flower has its own charm (dignity), but if If I were presented with a thousand flowers to choose from at once, I would still choose the daisy.”
Louis the Pious also combined this flower with the name of his wife Margaret. He ordered a crucifix to be made, which he placed as a coat of arms on his ring, and surrounded by a wreath of daisies and lilies. Thus, this ring always reminded him of the Savior, France and his dear wife.
From that time on, this name became a favorite among princesses. It was worn by the Duchess of Anjou, mother of Henry VII, sister of Francis I and others. It is also worn by the mother of the Italian king, who is extremely popular among the people due to her cordial attitude towards the poor and their children. In connection with her name and this love of hers for the poor, Mantegazza even wrote a fairy tale about the origin of the daisy.
The Tale of Montegazzi
“The great sun,” he says, “loves nothing more than flowers, cares for nothing more, and caresses nothing so much. And therefore, all the plants for centuries always asked him for something. Some wanted to be larger, others more fragrant, others wanted to have more beautiful flowers... Only one modest plant, whose pale white flowers glittered like stars in the meadow, never expressed any desire.
One day the sun noticed this, and it stopped in front of the plant and asked it: is it satisfied with its lot and does it want anything?
“Thank you,” answered the plant, “I feel quite happy the way the Lord created me.” “That’s wonderful of you,” said the sun, “but think, maybe you have some desire, and I would really like to fulfill it if you expressed it to me.” “In that case, let me bloom at every time of the year.” I rejoice when children disrupt me and play with me: I love children so much. “Let it be your way,” answered the sun, “and since you are the only one among all flowers in your modesty and resemble a pearl, then from now on be called a daisy.”
Saying this, the sun touched its flowers with one of its rays and left a yellow circle in the middle as its seal, and its petals, spreading apart, formed something like solar radiance.
If proud orchids, Mantegazza concludes his tale, decorate royal vases, if wondrous roses strew Persian carpets with their petals, then the humble daisy receives more heartfelt caresses than anyone, since she lives among the people and their children, where joys are rarer, but stronger and where the feeling of tenderness has not yet become a laughing stock..."
Daisy in England
As for England, the daisy enjoyed no less love there than in the rest of Europe.
The songs of Scottish bards say that the daisy was first brought to earth by the hand of an angel, who planted it on the grave of an untimely deceased young man. In one of Ossian’s songs, where he mourns the death of his son, who died during the battle, it is sung like this: “He took a star from the sky and lowered it to the earth in the place where all the hope of his parents was buried; and in this place a star flower grew - a daisy.”
Chaucer in his poems calls it “Day's eye” - the eye of the day, since indeed this flower, as you know, is one of the first to open at sunrise. From this name came the tender, affectionate diminutive name “Daisy” (Daisy), which is given in England to both the woman bearing the name Margarita and the flower itself.
Shakespeare speaks of the daisy in the most tender terms: “ Whose white investements figure innocence
"("her white robe depicts innocence").
Another famous English poet, Montgomery, expresses it this way: “ The rose has but a summer reign, The daisy never dies...
"("But the rose reigns only for one summer, and the daisy never dies").
Indeed, in the damp but rather warm climate of England, the daisy can be seen in bloom almost all year round. However, since the daisy in England is sometimes a harbinger of spring, before spring actually appears, it is necessary, according to the opinion of village English children, to step on 12 daisies. Their even more superstitious parents say that if you miss the chance to step on the first daisy you see in the spring, the daisies will cover you or one of your close friends before the year is out.
