Forget Me Not!

Not many of the flowers retain their legends in their names, but the forget-me-not indicates its own history: A young man walking beside the Danube with his sweetheart notes her admiration for some flowers– blue as her eyes–that grew on an islet in the stream. He tosses off his shoes and hat and coat, kisses her hand laughingly, and leaps into the river to pluck them for her, regardless of the current, the fangs of rock that lift through the foam, the cold of the evening, and the protest of the girl. He crosses safely, plucks the morsels of color, and is almost at the bank again when he is wrung by a cruel cramp, and can no longer hold his way against the whirl and surge of the rapid. The roar of the fall, not far below, is in his ears; he realizes that his hour is come. Looking into the white face of his beloved, he flings his bouquet at her feet with his last strength, cries, “Forget me not!” and disappears. She never does forget him, but wears the flowers in her hair until her own death.

From: Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants, by Charles M. Skinner, c. 1911 by J.B. Lippincott Company