Flower legends for children

THE TULIP.

Reading edition

Illustration from Flower legends for children

Once upon a time, there was an old woman who lived in a cottage set in the midst of a pretty garden, and in the garden was a bed of beautiful tulips.

Fairies and pixies are very fond of these flowers; and every night they brought their babies to put them to sleep under the tulips in the old woman’s garden, and the tulips sang and rocked the little pixies to sleep.

16As soon as the babies were asleep the fairy mothers and fathers would return to the fields, and there dance in moon-lit rings all night. When morning came they returned to the tulips to wake their little ones with gentle kisses.

Story page illustration showing an old man with a shovel looking down at a tiny fairy in a tulip bed, with a thatched cottage border on the right.

The tulips thus visited by the fairies kept fresh and beautiful much longer than any other flowers in the garden, and, strange to say, they also smelt as sweet as roses. The old woman was therefore so proud of her 17tulips that she never allowed anyone to touch them. One sad day, the old woman died, and an unkind man came to live in her cottage, who did not love flowers. He tore them all up, and planted a parsley bed instead; but he was well punished, for the fairies were so angry at the way he had treated their tulips that every night they danced and trampled on the parsley, so that it withered away. Indeed, they allowed nothing to grow in that garden for a long time.

Story page illustration showing a group of tiny fairies dancing on a lawn at night beneath a drooping yellow tulip while a snail plays a pan flute.

18The fairies, however, took great care of the grave where the old woman was buried, and mosses and grasses grew on it, and sweet wild flowers; and that was how they showed their gratitude to the old woman for keeping lovely tulips as cradles for their babies.

Color illustration of a royal family in Renaissance attire on a riverbank, with a man gesturing toward swans and a castle on a distant hill.

Art Nouveau style decorative border panel featuring a symmetrical design of forget-me-not flowers, vines, and small yellow bows on a pale background.