Each plant, whether it be a tree, flower or blade of grass, appeared on Earth not by chance, but with the goal of fulfilling a specific mission known only to Mother Nature. Here is the common orchis (also known as cuckoo tears) - an unobtrusive flower shrouded in an interesting legend of its origin. This plant, causing sincere sympathy, is otherwise called Ivan's hands for the specific form of the roots, which look like two hands: male and female, joined together.
Therefore, the root of the orchis in ancient times was used by magicians and sorcerers to make a love potion. They also rinsed the head with a decoction of this flower in order to increase sensuality and arousal. And on the Ascension holiday, young girls in the root determined the gender of the unborn child. Legends about flowers occupied a significant place in folklore. Spotted orchis (Cuckoo's tears) also occupied its worthy niche in the history of folk art.
Folk beliefs about orchis
In ancient times, people believed that a person who bathed in the first rays of the sun in the lake, in places where cuckoo's tears grow, will find youth, beauty and health. This perennial plant, reaching a height of half a meter, is also found among bushes, on the edges of forests and in spruce thickets. Its flowering time falls on the period from April to August.
Having a straight stem, the orchis looks very much like an orchid, and its leaves are similar to tulip leaves in their arrangement and shape. Lilac or dark cherry flowers are placed on a straight stalk, neatly collected in spike-shaped inflorescences and attract insects with reddish spots on the lower petal. For these spots, the people called the plantis orchis spotted. This flower also has another name - cuckoo tears. Moreover, there are two legends about its origin.
The legend of the cuckoo plant tears
In ancient times a woman lived in the world, and she had three sons. They grew up, like all ordinary children: they had fun, rejoiced and did not know grief. And when the mother looked at her beloved boys, her heart sang: she saw in them her support and hope in old age.
A beautiful and sad legend about the cuckoo's tear plant says that, trying to feed her children and grow them good people, a poor woman worked from morning to night, not sparing herself. Hard work under the scorching sun and torrential rains, in the fierce cold and intolerable heat, deprived her of youth, time and strength. Coming from work, the woman forgot about the rest, courting her children: fed, clothed, darned, washed. And they were completely spoiled and spent all day walking with friends, they didn’t do anything at home, they lost their hands and did not obey their mother. So days after days passed, children grew up, swimming in maternal love and care, and did not know grief.
Once, as the legend about the flower of a cuckoo's tears is broadcasting, a woman went to the river to wash her clothes and fell under heavy cold rain. Wet poor poorly, frozen and seriously ill. She did not have the strength to get out of bed to melt the stove and cook her children dinner. She began to ask the boys to help her make a fire in the stove, so that the house would become at least a little warmer. Her guys do not hear, coming up with various excuses. The mother asks their water to bring her, because she is dry in her throat and thirsty. Again her boys do not hear. Moreover, everyone is trying to come up with a pretext convincing, so as not to fulfill the request of the mother. The woman did not ask them for anything else, she cried from resentment. And the children with a clear conscience ran away for a walk with friends, leaving her alone with the disease, and not one of the three approached the mother who had fallen ill.
Time passed, and a feeling of hunger made itself felt. The eldest little man came home to have a bite. He goes inside and sees that mom is standing in the middle of a room in a fur coat, which on it began to turn into a gray plumage. The mother takes a thimble, and he becomes a beak. A wooden shovel, on which bread is planted in the oven, was wrapped in a bird's tail.
The woman waved her hands, they turned into wings. The woman turned into a cuckoo, flew out the window and flew away. Sons run after her, cry, call mother to home. Her mother does not want to hear, her children were very offended. She stopped believing them, only bitter tears pouring from resentment. Where a tear falls, a beautiful medicinal plant of cuckoo's tears sprouts.
Cuckoo behavior in nature
This is the legend about the cuckoo's tear plant, and it so happened in nature that the little gray cuckoo does not make nests. She produces offspring and immediately throws him into other people's nests. Often, the egg tossed is so similar in color and size to the eggs of the hosts that it is difficult to determine whose cub is in the nest until the baby is born.
Very often adoptive parents, who may be much smaller than their born cuckoo, carefully raise him, despite the fact that this is not their child. Cuckoo, having distributed its eggs in other people's nests, quietly lives its life further until the appearance of new offspring.
And the orchis - the fruit of maternal tears, as patient with weather conditions and the whims of nature as a mother with children's pranks, carries a reminder of love for the mother. That is why the flower was called cuckoo's tears. And that’s why the cuckoo stopped caring for her children, fearing to suffer resentment from them again.
Another legend about a cuckoo's tear flower
Orchis began to be called cuckoo tears in accordance with another legend, which states that in ancient times the bride and groom forgot to invite one sorcerer to the wedding. He was so offended and angry with the young that he turned all men into wolves, made women magpies, and the bride is a cuckoo, who has been flying through the forest since then, looking for her fiance among the wolves and crying. The legend of the cuckoo's tear plant says that in the places where this flower grew, an enchanted bride flew in search of her betrothed.
Orchis as a medicinal plant
By the way, this flower is endowed with a whole set of valuable trace elements, the amount of which is enough to replenish the daily supply of human energy. In ancient times, the Persians used this, which when conquering foreign lands for a long time could do without food, eating the tubers of this plant, washing them down with milk and water.
In terms of their medicinal qualities, the most valuable are the berries of orchis, used in the treatment of gastritis, ulcers, poisoning. This is a very good way to restore strength after a long illness and improve well-being.
