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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.
It is not surprising that this plant has been associated with love among the Greeks since ancient times.
Viola
In one village there lived a trusting Anyuta. To her misfortune, a young handsome man came to this village, with whom she fell in love. And he turned out to be a liar. She waited, she waited for her beloved and died of longing.
On her grave, in memory of strong love, beautiful flowers bloomed, similar to her blue eyes. The whole story of the girl's short life was reflected in the tricolor petals.
White is the hope for mutual love, yellow expresses surprise at the act of a loved one, and purple is sadness and collapsed hopes for happiness. They called those flowers pansies.
Hyacinth
The young son of the king of Sparta named Hyacinth was so beautiful that he could compare his beauty with the Olympian gods. He was patronized by the gods of the south wind Zephyr and Apollo.
They often visited their friend on the banks of the Eurotus in Sparta, hunted in the densely overgrown forests, entertained themselves with sports in which the Spartans were extremely skilled.
Once Apollo and Hyacinth competed in the discus throw. It was impossible to give preference to any of the athletes, because Hyacinth performed no worse than God. Exerting his last strength, Apollo threw the disk under the very clouds, and Zephyr, who was eager for his friend's victory, blew so hard that the disk hit Hyacinth in the face and mortally wounded him.
Apollo, saddened by the death of the young man, turned the drops of his blood into wonderful flowers, so that the memory of him would live among people.
Gladiolus
An African legend.
One day, enemies descended on a small village and many residents were captured, but the elder managed to escape, hiding the main values of the community from the invaders. Then the enemies began to torture the beautiful daughter of the elder, wanting to find out where her father was hiding and where the treasures were hidden. But she didn't say a word to her enemies. Then they decided to execute her in front of all her fellow countrymen, but at the moment when the sword was supposed to touch her neck, the gods turned it into a beautiful flower with purple-red flowers, like drops of blood.
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