Flower legends for children

THE ☆︎ ALMOND TREE

Reading edition

There is a charming story about the almond tree in Grecian history. A young Greek, called Demophoon, was on his way home from the siege of Troy; but as the ship passed the shores of Thrace, there was a great storm, and he was shipwrecked.

Now the King of Thrace had a beautiful daughter, named Phyllis, who received Demophoon with kindness, and he fell in love with her, and she promised to marry him.

Before the wedding Demophoon said he must go to his country to get his palace ready for his beautiful princess.

38Away he went in another ship, and the princess was quite happy at first as Demophoon had promised to return very soon, but time went on and he never came. The princess watched and waited, but in vain; and, in course of time, as Demophoon never returned, she became very thin and ill, and, at last, she died.

Then because she had been so faithful and constant to the unworthy Demophoon the fairies changed her into a beautiful almond tree.

Vibrant color illustration of a young Greek musician with a lyre and a flying cloak running toward a woman whose body is morphing into a leafy laurel bush.

Story header titled 'The Laurel' with a large decorative initial 'T' and a illustration of laurel leaf clusters.