Where the Russian name for this flower came from is not known for certain. True, some of its beautiful varieties actually look a little like the eye, but these are for the most part already large varieties, improved by cultivation, while the plant that interests us is that simple, modest flower that grows on arable land, and sometimes near houses, in the garden. land in the village.
In Germany it is called stepmother (Stiefmutterchen), explaining this name as follows.
The lowest, largest, most beautifully speckled petal represents the dressed-up stepmother, the two higher, no less beautifully colored petals represent her own daughters, and the two uppermost white petals, as if faded, with a lilac tint, represent her poorly dressed stepdaughters. Tradition says that before the stepmother was at the top, and the poor stepdaughters at the bottom, but the Lord took pity on the poor downtrodden and abandoned girls and turned the flower, and gave the evil stepmother spurs, and her daughters the hated mustache.
According to others, pansies represent the face of, indeed, if you like, an angry stepmother.
In fact, there are flowers whose faces look somehow evil, so, perhaps, one can mistake them, according to the fairy tale, for the face of some evil woman.
Still others, seeing a face in them, do not see anything evil in its expression, but simply curiosity and say that it belongs to one woman, who, as if, was turned into this flower because, out of curiosity, she looked where she was prohibited.
As if to confirm this, another legend is told about their appearance on earth.
One day, the legend says, Venus decided to bathe in a remote grotto, where no human eye could penetrate, and bathed for a long time.
But suddenly she hears a rustling sound and sees that several mortals are looking at her...
Then, falling into indescribable anger, she appeals to Zeus and begs to punish the daring.
Zeus heeds her plea and wants to punish them with death, but then softens and turns them into pansies, the painting of which expresses the curiosity and surprise that led to their death.
The Greeks called this flower the flower of Jupiter, and they had such a legend about its origin.
One day, the Thunderer, bored with sitting on his throne of clouds, decided to come down to earth for the sake of variety. In order not to be recognized, he took on the appearance of a shepherd and took with him a lovely white lamb, which he led on a string. Having reached the Argive fields, he saw a mass of people rushing to the temple of Juno and mechanically followed him. It was here that the famous Greek beauty Io, the daughter of King Inoch, performed a sacrifice. Fascinated by her extraordinary beauty, Jupiter forgot about his divine origin and, laying the lovely white lamb he had brought with him at her feet, revealed himself to her in his love.
Proud, unapproachable, refusing the advances of all earthly kings, Io could not resist the spell of the Thunderer and became carried away by him. The lovers usually saw each other only in the silence of the night and in the strictest secrecy, but the jealous Juno soon found out about this connection, and Jupiter, in order to save poor Io from the wrath of his wife, was forced to turn her into a wonderful snow-white cow.
But this transformation of Io, which sheltered Juno from the anger and malice, became the greatest misfortune for her. Having learned about such a terrible transformation, she began to sob bitterly, and her pitiful cries sounded like the roar of a cow. She wanted to raise her hands to the sky to beg the immortals to return her to her former image, but the hands that had turned into legs did not obey her. She wandered sadly among her sisters, and no one recognized her. True, her father caressed her from time to time like a beautiful animal and gave her juicy leaves, which he plucked from the nearest bush, but in vain she licked his hands with gratitude, in vain she shed tears - he also did not recognize her.
Then a happy thought came to her mind: she decided to write about her misfortune. And then one day, when her father was feeding her, she began to draw letters in the sand with her feet. These strange movements attracted his attention, he began to peer into what was written on the sand and, to his horror, he recognized the unfortunate fate of his dear, beautiful daughter, whom he had considered dead long ago.
“Oh, I’m unfortunate!” he exclaimed, hugging her neck. “This is the terrible form in which I find you, my dear, priceless child, you, whom I have been looking for so long and in vain everywhere. Looking for you everywhere in vain, I suffered greatly ", but having found it - ten times more. Poor, poor child, you cannot even utter a single word of consolation to me; instead of words, only wild sounds escape from your painful soul!"
The unfortunate daughter and father were inconsolable. And then, in order to at least somewhat soften the terrible fate of Io, the earth, by order of Jupiter, grew our flower as a pleasant, tasty food for it, which, as a result, received the name of the flower of Jupiter from the Greeks and symbolically depicted the blushing and pale maiden shyness.
We don’t find any information about pansies among the Romans, but in the Middle Ages they began to play a role in the Christian world and received the name St. Flower. Trinity.
According to Clusius, medieval Christians saw a triangle in the dark spot in the middle of the flower and compared it with the all-seeing eye, and in the stains surrounding it - the radiance coming from it. The triangle depicted, in their opinion, the three faces of St. Trinity, originating from the all-seeing eye - God the Father.
In general, this flower was surrounded by mystery in the Middle Ages, and in one of the Trappist monasteries one could see on the wall a huge image of it with a death’s head in the center and the inscription: “memento mori” (remember death). Perhaps that is why white pansies are considered a symbol of death in Northern France; they are never given to anyone or made into bouquets.
On the other hand, they served as a symbol of fidelity for lovers, and it was customary to give each other their portraits, placed in an enlarged image of this flower.
It has the same meaning in our time in Poland, where it is called “brothers” and is given as a souvenir only as a sign of great affection. As they say, a young girl gives such a flower as a souvenir only to her fiancé.
Since ancient times, pansies have also been attributed the property of bewitching love.
To do this, the person they wanted to bewitch only had to sprinkle the juice of these flowers on their eyelids during sleep and then come and stand in front of him just as he wakes up.
Modern French peasant girls, in order to attract someone’s love and find out where their betrothed lives, twirl the flower by the peduncle, saying: “Think carefully: in the direction where you stop, my betrothed will also be.”
Since the 16th century, pansies have received the universal name pensee - thought, thought, but where it came from and for what reason it was given is unknown. It is only known that it first appeared in Brabant. There is an assumption that it is of Persian origin, since nowhere in the world has this flower enjoyed such love as in Persia, where there are even much more affectionate names for it than for the rose that is adored by everyone there.
The German botanist Stern suggests that it occurs because the seed pod of this flower is somewhat like a skull - the place where the brain and thoughts are housed.
These flowers are sent in England by lovers on Valentine's Day (February 14th), when all feelings, hidden for a whole year, receive the right to pour out on paper, and are sent to the address of those intended.
On this day, as they say, more letters with declarations of love are written here than in the entire globe.
Now, hiding behind anonymity as a mask, even girls decide to open their hearts, their thoughts to the one they loved until now only in secret, and young people are waiting for this day to offer their hand and heart to their chosen ones.
Sometimes they just send a dried flower with a name. This is already enough - everything is clear.
That is why, in addition to the name pansy, corresponding to the French word pensee, it is also called in England “Hearts ease” - “heartfelt peace”, “heartfelt joy”, since indeed, expressing without words the desire and thought of the one who sends it, it serves as a calmer his feelings.
The French name of this flower also gave Louis XV the opportunity, when elevating the economist and physician Quesnay, so famous in his time, to the nobility of his family, to place three pensees in his coat of arms with the inscription: “to a deep thinker.”
However, everything that we have said so far concerns not those velvety wonderful Pansies that we meet in our gardens, but their modest yellow and purple wild ancestors.
The first attempt to make them garden flowers dates back to the time of Melanchthon’s famous comrade, Camerarius, who lived at the beginning of the 16th century. At this time, Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel began to breed them from seeds in his gardens. He was the first to give a complete description of this flower. In the 17th century, Vandergren, the gardener of the Prince of Orange, began to study it, and developed five varieties.
But this flower owes its first significant improvement to Lady Mary Benet, daughter of the Earl of Tankerville, in Walton, England, who, having made it her favorite, planted it in the entire garden and the entire terrace of her castle. As a result, her gardener Richard, wanting to please her, began to collect the seeds of the largest and most beautiful specimens and sow them, and insects, flying from one flower to another and pollinating them, contributed to the formation of new varieties. Thus, those wonderful varieties were soon created that attracted everyone’s attention and made pansies one of the most beloved flowers.
This was in 1819, and in the 30s of the 19th century, that is, fifteen years later, ordinary pansies began to be crossed partly with the European large-flowered yellow violet (Viola lutea), and partly with the Altai violet, and thus obtained a mass (Darwin in 1830 year, there were already more than 400 varieties of them, among them are already those velvety, satiny flowers that decorate our gardens.
Recently, especially beautiful flowers have been bred in England: completely black, called Faust, light blue - Margarita and wine-red - Mephistopheles. Now all the attention of gardeners is turned to obtaining double and strongly fragrant flowers, since the only thing this lovely flower lacks is smell.
In America, in the city of Portland, Oregon, gardeners are trying to increase the size of the flower and are already producing, as they say, flowers 4-5 inches in diameter.
But this size still seems insufficient to gardeners: they want to give them the size of a sunflower.
This gigantic growth, apparently, is largely facilitated by both the climate and the very soil of Oregon, where in general these flowers grow as successfully as anywhere else.
Almost all large flowers are red in color, while yellow and white ones never reach a large size.
At a gardening exhibition planned some time ago in Portland, local gardeners thought of displaying 25,000 of these gigantic eyes in one flowerbed: whether they succeeded, I don’t know.
In conclusion, we will tell you one funny incident that happened in 1815 in a small provincial town in France, the reason for which was our humble flower.
The priest of this town, and at the same time a school teacher, once decided to assign his students an essay on the topic “Viola tricolor” (three-colored violet), which is the name of pansies in scientific language, and in the explanation he added as an epigraph a line from a Latin poem of medieval French poet: "Flosque lovis varius foliis tricoloris et ipse par violae" ("A variety of the flower of Jupiter with tricolor petals and itself equal to the violet").
Common name: garden violet, Johnny's jacket, stepmother
Aura: cold
Planet: Saturn
Element: water
Plant parts used: flowers
Basic properties: Love
Magic powers: love, rain magic, love fortune telling.
Magical uses: If you carry pansies with you or on your dress, it attracts love.
In Europe, these flowers symbolize memory, reflection and thought.
In Christianity they represent the celebration of the Trinity.
The ancient Greeks believed that this flower was grown by Zeus for the daughter of the Argive king Io, who was turned into a cow by the jealous Hera. Pansies symbolize a love triangle and remind that Hera's curse does not last forever.
The Romans believed that pansies were overly immodest people whom the gods turned into plants when they secretly spied on the bathing Venus.
In the Middle Ages, pansies were revered on a par with forget-me-nots. They framed portraits of loved ones. A bouquet of pansies is a sign of love.
If pansies are picked while they are still covered in dew, it will soon rain. Pansies are considered unsuitable for the garden, as they are “flowers for the dead.” In Russia they are often planted on graves. In mythology, rain, like the weather in general, is “in the power” of deceased ancestors. The English superstition, which sees a relationship between pansies and rain, and the Russian belief, which calls them “flowers of the dead,” complement each other.
At the same time, since ancient times, Pansies have been credited with the ability to bewitch love. To do this, the person they wanted to bewitch had to sprinkle the juice of these flowers on his eyelids during sleep, and when the sleeper opens his eyes, the first person he sees should be the one who dreams of his love.
The strange, dual purpose of these flowers is entirely based on connections with the celestial beings, both angels and cupids, and with deceased relatives.
Pansies are good against the evil eye. Planted in the garden, they protect the house from magic.
They are very suitable for fortune telling: plant pansies in the shape of a heart; if they grow well, your love will be happy too.
A woman whose lover is a sailor can be sure that at sea he will think of her if she bury sea sand in a flowerbed with pansies and water these flowers until the sun rises.
In order for a girl to have admirers, she must carry a freshly picked flower in her left breast pocket.
In order for a girl to have good, promising acquaintances and to have happiness in love, she must have an image of pansies in the house. It could be a painting. And it’s even better if it’s embroidery done by yourself. The painting or embroidery should be placed in a light frame and hung on the wall in the living room or bedroom of a young man, to the left of the window. This is also effective for a young man, who can give jewelry or paintings depicting flowers to the desired girl.
So that a close friend, going on a long journey, does not forget you in a foreign land, take some small object that belongs to him. Do it so that no one sees it and no one knows about it. On a full moon, when the Moon rises in the sky, bury this item in a flowerbed with pansies. The object must be pinned to a depth of approximately 5 centimeters. Just make sure that no one digs it up (dogs or people). Take care of the flowerbed yourself, do not let anyone do it for you. When your chosen one returns home, the item can be dug up and quietly returned to its place.
If a period of fuss and confusion has come in your life, if you have accumulated a lot of questions to which you cannot find answers for yourself, seek advice from pansies. They will help you. Before going to bed, place a pot of pansies near your bed (picked flowers are unlikely to help you), while lying in bed, ask all the questions to the flowers, in a dream answers and help will come to you, in the morning you will find a solution to your problems easily and naturally.
In a dream, pansies foreshadow an imminent romantic date, as well as a person’s ability to remember everything good and bright in his life. If you have problems, then such a dream predicts that friends and relatives will not leave you in trouble. Smelling them in a dream is a sign that some person is looking for you.
A flower symbolizing thought and meditation. This plant is also called viola, and its scientific name is Vitrocca violet.
The symbolism is due to the phonetic similarity between the English name of the plant pansy and the Old French word panse - thought, thinking. In the language of flowers, pansies mean “I’m thinking about you.”
The plant has a cold aura. He is ruled by the planet Saturn. The element of the plant is water. The center of distribution of tricolor violet is Europe. This species is distributed throughout its territory, from Scandinavia to Corsica, in the western part of Asia, in Siberia and the Caucasus. Thanks to English settlers, naturalized in America
Voronina Elena
The ancient Greeks believed that pansies were a gift from their supreme god to the daughter of the Argive king Io. She fell in love with Zeus, and Hera, the wife of the king of the gods, turned her into a cow out of jealousy. To calm his beloved, Zeus grew wonderful flowers for her - the personification of a love triangle. And also the ancient Greeks in the 4th century BC. This modest plant has already begun to be used for medicinal purposes. To prepare medicinal raw materials, syrups were boiled, which were used to treat many diseases. Tricolor violets were an indispensable component of a love potion. They were grown in gardens, added to salads and sweets, and used in cosmetics.
Laurence Biddle 
The ancient Romans had this legend:
One day, Venus decided to bathe in a remote grotto, where no human eye could penetrate. And while swimming there
She suddenly hears a rustling sound and sees that several mortals are looking at her.
Then, falling into indescribable anger, she appeals to Zeus and begs to punish the daring. Zeus heeds her plea and wants to punish them with death, but then softens and turns them into pansies, the painting of which expresses the curiosity and surprise that led to their death.
Laurence Biddle 
in England these flowers are called "Hearts ease" - "delight of the heart." If someone was given a bouquet of pansies, it meant that they were declared in love. And in England, these flowers are sent to lovers on February 14, Valentine's Day. Girls are waiting for this day to open their hearts, young people - to propose their hand and heart. Sometimes they just send a dried flower with a name. This is quite enough
Anna Bain 
In the floral symbolism of medieval Europe, pansies had the meaning of forget-me-nots, so in France and England it was customary to frame portraits of loved ones with them. The French called them "flowers for memory." Since ancient times, pansies have also been attributed the property of bewitching love. To do this, the person they wanted to bewitch only had to sprinkle the juice of these flowers on their eyelids during sleep and then stand in front of him just as he wakes up.
French peasant girls, in order to attract someone's love and find out where their betrothed lives, twirl the flower by the peduncle, saying: “Think carefully: in the direction where you stop, my betrothed will also be.”
The French name of this flower - Pensee (thinking, thought), also gave Louis XV the opportunity, when elevating the famous economist and doctor Quesnay to the dignity of nobility, to place three Pensees in his coat of arms with the inscription: “to a deep thinker.”
The first attempt to make pansies into garden flowers dates back to the time of Melanchthon's famous comrade (reformer - known as an associate of Luther) - Camerarius, who lived at the beginning of the 16th century. And at the same time, Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel began to grow these flowers from seeds in his gardens. He was the first to give a complete description of this flower. In the 17th century, Vandergren, the gardener of the Prince of Orange, began to study it, and developed five varieties.
Laura Coombs Hills 
But this flower owes its first significant improvement to Lady Mary Benet, daughter of the Earl of Tankerville, in Walton, England, who, having made it her favorite, planted it in the entire garden and the entire terrace of her castle. As a result, her gardener Richard, wanting to please her, began to collect the seeds of the largest and most beautiful specimens and sow them, and insects, flying from one flower to another and pollinating them, contributed to the formation of new varieties. Thus, those wonderful varieties were soon created that attracted everyone’s attention and made pansies one of the most beloved flowers.
Mary Ann Cox 
In Germany it is called stepmother (Stiefmutterchen), explaining this name as follows:
The lowest, largest, most beautifully speckled petal represents the dressed-up stepmother, the two higher, no less beautifully colored petals represent her own daughters, and the two uppermost white petals, as if faded, with a lilac tint, represent her poorly dressed stepdaughters. Tradition says that before the stepmother was at the top, and the poor stepdaughters at the bottom, but the Lord took pity on the poor downtrodden and abandoned girls and turned the flower, and gave the evil stepmother spurs, and her daughters the hated mustache.
In Poland, the bride gave pansies to the departing groom, which meant eternal memory and fidelity to the giver.
In pagan Rus', many two-color plants were called Ivan-da-Marya. Along with the tricolor violet, this name is also given to the oak grass (Melampyrum nemorosum), which has brightly colored purple and yellow bracts, and several other plants. The origins of the name “pansy” are not exactly known, but time has brought to this day the old Slavic legend about the village girl Anyuta with a kind heart and trusting, radiant eyes, who died in longing for an insidious seducer. At the site of her burial, pansies grew, the petals of which reflected all her feelings: white - hope, yellow - surprise, purple - sadness.
Sarah K. Lamb 
In the Middle Ages, violets acquired religious meaning. Christians saw in the three lower petals of a flower the all-seeing eye of God the Father or the three faces of the Holy Trinity. In many ancient European herbariums they are given the name Herba Trinitis (Trinity Grass), Trinity Violet (Trinity Violet), Trinitaria. In Rus', she was respectfully called “Trinity Light”.
In Christian art, she symbolized humility; Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), advisor to the French kings, who played an outstanding role in the formation of the Catholic monastic order of the Cistercians, called the Virgin Mary “the violet of humility.”
Doris Joa 
They used to guess on pansies; by the number of purple veins on the petals of the flower they predicted the future of a love relationship: four veins meant hope, seven - eternal love, eight - inconstancy, nine - parting, eleven - early death for love.
The wild tricolor violet is odorless.
The famous English botanist John Gerard wrote back in 1587: “The flowers are similar in shape and appearance to violets, and for the most part of the same height, of three different colors - purple, yellow and white, due to the beauty and splendor of which they are very pleasing to the eye , but they provide little or nothing for the sense of smell.”
According to German legend, they once had a wonderful aroma and people came from all over to enjoy them. But they trampled all the grass in the meadow and deprived the cows of food. Pansies began to ask God to help the cows, and then God took away their scent, making them even more beautiful in return.
The delicate scent of pansies is most pronounced in the early morning and at dusk. The most fragrant are the yellow and blue varieties, which are closest to the parent forms. In England, the perfume scent of pansies has become the most popular. Isn’t it for this that the British awarded them another name - Ladie’s Delight (Ladies’ Delight)?
Ford Jane 
In the mid-19th century, many varieties of pansies were obtained in Scotland and Switzerland, hybridization was carried out by increasing the size of plants and flowers, and developing forms without dark spots and veins. By the end of the century, Scottish grower Dr. Charles Stewart accomplished this task, producing pansies with flowers of a single, smooth color, without spots.
Susan Ketcham 
Already in the 50s of the 18th century, pansies crossed the Atlantic and quickly spread to North America, where they were called Johny Jump Up, with different variations: Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me -and-kiss-me), Pink-eyed-John (Pink-eyed John), Loving Idol (Idol of Love), Call-me-to-You (Invite-me-to-yourself). In America, pansies became a strong symbol of freethinking, which was widely reflected in the literature of the time. In the US postal catalogs of 1888, pansies are presented as “the most popular of all flowers grown from seeds.” Sales exceeded 100 thousand bags a year, a very large figure even by the standards of the modern market. America made its contribution to selection; at the beginning of the 20th century, large-flowered varieties of red shades with a flower diameter of up to 10-12 cm were bred in Portland (Oregon).
Fred Meyer 
For a long time, England and Scotland held the leadership in the selection of pansies. By the middle of the 20th century, the initiative was taken up by Germany and Japan, where pansies of new colors were born - pink, orange, two-color. In the Land of the Rising Sun, the plant received the name Sansiki-Sumire, becoming a symbol of the city of Osaka and temporarily surpassing in popularity the pride of Japanese garden culture - the chrysanthemum.
Vikki Fields 
Today, France and Germany are leading in the introduction of new varieties of pansies. Thanks to German breeders, corrugated, wavy and orchid-colored pansies with differently symmetrical flowers, giant varieties with unusually early flowering, appeared.
Over five centuries of selection and hybridization, pansies have acquired the widest range of colors among annuals. There are purple, red, blue, bronze, pink, black, yellow, white, lavender, orange, apricot, burgundy, purple. The height increased from 6 to 20-23 cm, the plants began to bloom profusely. Plain or two-color, satin or velvety, they look at us with their funny faces, sending greetings to the Victorian era, when the first English gardeners began breeding pansies, so that for many centuries they would give people the joy of cordial communication and ladies' delight.
Edward C.Leavitt 
François Lepage 
Bruce Harman 
Boris Kustodiev 
Yuri Arsenyuk 
Delbert Gish 
Trisha Hardwick 
Mary Irwin 
Scott Royston 
Vernon Ward 
Paul Strisik 
Annelies Jonkhart 
Roberts Stone 
Orlov Andrey
Novikova Alla 
Legends about flowers. Pansies January 14th, 2013
According to the legend about the violet (about the pansies): the three-color petals of the pansies reflect three periods of the life of the girl Anyuta with a kind heart and trusting eyes. She lived in a village, believed every word, found an excuse for every action. Unfortunately, she met an insidious seducer and fell in love with him with all her heart. And the young man was afraid of her love and hurried on the road, assuring that he would return soon. Anyuta looked at the road for a long time, quietly fading away from melancholy. And when she died, flowers appeared at the place of her burial, the tricolor petals of which reflected hope, surprise and sadness. This is a Russian legend about a flower.
nbsp; The Greeks called this flower the flower of Jupiter, and they had such a legend about its origin.
One day, the Thunderer, bored with sitting on his throne of clouds, decided to come down to earth for the sake of variety. In order not to be recognized, he took on the appearance of a shepherd and took with him a lovely white lamb, which he led on a string. Having reached the Argive fields, he saw a mass of people rushing to the temple of Juno and mechanically followed him. It was here that the famous Greek beauty Io, the daughter of King Inoch, performed a sacrifice. Fascinated by her extraordinary beauty, Jupiter forgot about his divine origin and, laying the lovely white lamb he had brought with him at her feet, revealed himself to her in his love.
nbsp; Proud, unapproachable, refusing the advances of all earthly kings, Io could not resist the spell of the Thunderer and became carried away by him. The lovers usually saw each other only in the silence of the night and in the strictest secrecy, but the jealous Juno soon found out about this connection, and Jupiter, in order to save poor Io from the wrath of his wife, was forced to turn her into a wonderful snow-white cow. But this transformation of Io, which sheltered Juno from the anger and malice, became the greatest misfortune for her. Having learned about such a terrible transformation, she began to sob bitterly, and her pitiful cries sounded like the roar of a cow. She wanted to raise her hands to the sky to beg the immortals to return her to her former image, but the hands that had turned into legs did not obey her. She wandered sadly among her sisters, and no one recognized her. True, her father caressed her from time to time like a beautiful animal and gave her juicy leaves, which he plucked from the nearest bush, but in vain she licked his hands with gratitude, in vain she shed tears - he also did not recognize her.
nbsp; Then a happy thought came to her mind: she decided to write about her misfortune. And then one day, when her father was feeding her, she began to draw letters in the sand with her feet. These strange movements attracted his attention, he began to peer into what was written on the sand and, to his horror, he recognized the unfortunate fate of his dear, beautiful daughter, whom he had considered dead long ago.
- Oh, I'm unhappy! - he exclaimed, clinging to her neck and hugging her muzzle. “This is the terrible form in which I find you, my dear, priceless child, you whom I have been looking for so long and in vain everywhere. Looking for you everywhere in vain, I suffered greatly, but having found you, I suffered ten times more. Poor, poor child, you can’t even say one word of consolation to me; instead of words, only wild sounds come out of your painful soul!
The unfortunate daughter and father were inconsolable. And then, in order to at least somewhat soften the terrible fate of Io, Zeus, on the orders of Jupiter, grew our flower, a pleasant, tasty food for her, which, as a result, received from the Greeks the name of the flower of Jupiter or pansy, which symbolized the love triangle.
One day, the sun god Apollo was pursuing one of the beautiful daughters of Atlas with his burning rays; the poor girl turned to Zeus with a prayer to shelter and protect her. And so the great Thunderer, heeding her pleas, turned her into a wonderful violet and hid her in the shade of his booths, where since then she has bloomed every spring and filled the heavenly forests with her fragrance.
3Here, perhaps, this lovely flower would have remained forever and would never have come to our earth, but it so happened that Proserpina, the daughter of Zeus and Ceres, having gone into the forest for flowers, was abducted by the suddenly appearing Pluto, just at that time when she picked violets. In fright, she dropped the flowers she had picked from her hands onto the ground, which served as the ancestors of those violets that grow among us to this day.
This is what another legend tells. One hot day, Venus decided to swim in the most remote grotto so that no one could spy. The goddess Venus bathed for a long time and with pleasure and suddenly heard a rustling sound. She turned and saw several mortals looking at her. The goddess was angry and decided to punish those who were too curious. Venus turned to Zeus with a request to punish the perpetrators. Zeus, of course, responded to the request of the beautiful goddess and decided to punish them, but then softened and turned them into pansies, expressing curiosity and surprise.
In Germany they call this flower stepmother, explaining the name as follows. The lower, largest and most beautiful petal is a dressed-up stepmother. The two higher, no less beautifully colored petals are her no less beautifully dressed daughters. And the two uppermost white petals, as if faded, with a lilac tint to the petals, are her poorly dressed stepdaughters. Tradition says that before the stepmother was at the top, and the poor stepdaughters at the bottom, but God took pity on the poor, downtrodden and abandoned girls and turned the flower, while the evil stepmother got the spur that bothered her, and her own daughters got the hated mustache.
Some saw in this flower a woman's face expressing curiosity. They say that this face belongs to a woman who was turned into a flower because, out of curiosity, she looked where she was forbidden to look.
In Rus' it was believed that pansies were not suitable for the garden, since they were flowers not for the living, but for the dead. In Central Russia they are traditionally planted on graves. According to English folk belief, if you pick pansies on a clear day, it will soon rain. In Roman mythology, the tricolor violet is called the flower of Jupiter. The violet is the favorite flower of Empress Josephine and the emblem of the Napoleons.
The tricolor violet is sometimes called Ivan-da-Marya, although this is also the name given to plants of some other species - for example, Mariannik oakberry, Geneva tenacious, meadow sage and periwinkle. Why? They also have two distinctly different colors (for the violet, the third, white, is not taken into account).
Ivan-da-Marya is most often called brother-and-sister, yellow grass, and willow grass. Ivan da Marya is the popular name for several herbaceous plants, the flowers of which (or the upper parts of the entire plant) are distinguished by the presence of two sharply distinguishable colors, most often yellow and blue or purple.
There are many legends associated with Ivan da Marya... Usually this name is explained by the legendary story about brother and sister Ivan and Marya, between whom there was some kind of insoluble conflict, to resolve which they decided to become a flower, painted in different colors. According to one version, the brother and sister did not know about their blood relationship and entered into marriage; for violating the custom, they were turned by God into a flower. According to another, the transformation took place with the consent of the lovers, who could not cope with their passion and did not want to part. The harshest version of the legend says that the sister wanted to seduce her brother, and he killed her for this. As a dying wish, the girl asked to plant this flower on the grave. Another meaning is associated only with the platonic, family love of the same characters. It is also reflected in an old legend that tells how a brother and sister lived on the shore of a lake. Once the mermaids lured Marya, and she became the wife of a merman. Ivan was grieving and wanted to leave when he discovered his sister’s shoes on the shore, but in the end he saved her by defeating the water wormwood grass.