Why Roses Are Red Note: there were lots of stories explaining why roses are red. This, to me, was the most morbid of all of them. If you are of a Judeo-Christian background, and will be offended by me calling a story about Cain and Abel morbid, do me a favor, and please don’t read [...]

The Ivy-covered Monastery That toleration of the heathen vine had become established so early as the twelfth century, this legend of Florence will signify: In that time there stood beside a convent in the city a tall tree clothed with ivy, such as covered also the walls of the retreat. The brethren preserved a tradition [...]

Pyramus and Thisbe Pyramus and Thisbe are the classic forerunners of Romeo and Juliet. These two young Babylonian lovers were parted by their cruel parents, yet contrived to meet secretly, and between-whiles they breathed affection through a chink in the dividing wall. Their favorite tryst was in the shade of a white mulberry at the [...]

Sageflower and the King A…tale, which may have its roots in a sun or season myth of pre-Christian time, represents the sage as a nymph living in a hollow oak beside a pool where jonquils sprang, dulling her shyer beauty. But she had no jealousy. She looked into the water mirror and saw her own [...]

The Origin of the Wallflower The cheiranthus cheiri–Chaucerized as cherisaunce, and likewise known as heart’s ease, wall violet, winter gillflower, blood-drops-of-Christ, and bloody warrior–had it legendary origin in a castle on the Tweed, whose lord had a fair young daughter, who fell in love with the laird of a neighbor clan, desperately hated by her [...]

The Knight and the Lily Maiden In a folk-tale of Normandy a knight who had resisted the charms of the sex till he had acquired a reputation for coldness that exempted him from its assault, was accustomed to spend much time in graveyards, where he would be seen in a listening attitude, as if he [...]

The Apple of Immortality In Persia, the apple is the fruit of immortality, as we learn from the tale of Anasindhu, a holy man who lived in a wood with Parvati, his wife, speaking only thrice a year, and giving all his waking hours to meditations on virtue. The reputation he gained for wisdom and [...]

Isabella and the Pot of Basil Isabella, whose story has been told by Boccaccio, Keats, and Hunt, in tale, poem, and picture, was a maid of Messina who, left to her own resources by her brothers–they being rich and absorbed in business–found solace in the company of Lorenzo, the comely manager of their enterprises. The [...]