Flowers in Myths
As flowers play an important role in society, a lot of legends and stories appeared that tell us about the precedence of flowers.
Mythology of Ancient World is filled with legends about flowers and their influence on humanity.
Aster. The shape of aster reminds us of space and stars, so this flower received its name thanks to stars, because aster comes from the Latin word "aster" that means "star". According to ancient myth if you come to the garden at night where there are a lot of asters, then you can hear the whisper, because these flowers communicate with stars. People of ancient Greece believed that aster was created of a space dust when Aphrodite was looking at stars and crying. So aster became a symbol of love for Greeks. And in ancient times people believed that if to drop an aster into the fire, the smoke is ale to banish evil spirits.
Marigold. This flower was named in honour of the mythological character that became popular thanks to the possibility to predict future. This character was a child that was telling future of the world and could even predict future using organs of animals. But he disappeared suddenly.
Cornflower. This flower is associated with centaur. He knew all curing abilities of plants and flowers and with the help of this flower he could treat the wounds that were made by the arrow of Hercules.
Delphinium. According to myth, after the death of Achilles his armours were given to Odysseus, but Ayes wanted to take these armours because thought that he was the hero. So he dropped the sword and his blood fell on the flour and turned into flowers that were named delphiniums. According to another theory they were named so because reminded of dolphins. Other version says that Greek gods turned a guy into dolphin because he created a sculpture of his dead girlfriend and brought her to life. And once when his girlfriend came to the sea the dolphin brought her flowers called delphiniums.
Iris. The name of this flower was created thanks to the rainbow. According to the ancient myth, the goddess of rainbow – Iris was flying in the sky. And people gave this name to a flower to honour the goddess (in Latin iris means rainbow), because its colours were so bright and different like the colours of the rainbow.
Lily of the valley. There is a myth about lilies. People decided to catch a goddess of hunting Diana during hunting. They attacked her but she began running and the drops of her sweat fell on the grass and they had a very strong aroma. And in the place where they were falling flowers appeared that were called lilies of the valley.
One of the most interesting myths is about lily. The goddess Hera was feeding her child Ares. And some drops of milk fell on the ground and turned into white lilies. From that time this flowers became the symbols of Hera.