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Mantegazza has the following poetic tale about the birth of this flower. It was April and the Earth was awaiting heavenly gifts. The Spring Goddess, keen to see first bird nests in bushes and trees, and first flowers in the fields and meadows, went to wake up the Sun. She said to the Sun: ‘Wake up, it is the first of April, the sound of passionate desire, which can hardly be suppressed, and sad sighs are rising from the Earth to the Heaven’. Having heard this the Sun got up and soon went down to the Earth, escorted by the Spring Goddess and Iris, the rainbow. Then the Spring Goddess mixed multi-coloured rainbow rays with sunrays and poured them down on fields, meadows, tree branches, into clefts, in fact, everywhere. On the Earth these life-giving rays turned into pink, red, pale-blue and dark-blue, gold and snow white, dotted and striped flowers, which formed stars, umbrellas, bells, cups, ears and tassels. Intoxicated by love they all mixed – the Earth rejoiced in embraces and kisses. The Sun carried on working days in and out, and finally got to the far borders of the Earth – Scandinavia, where the Sun is usually asleep for months, flowers are scarce, where the ice goes deep into the Earth. The Sun was tired and wanted to stop its work but the Spring Goddess, being a woman, being a sympathising creature and having seen this country hardly covered with plants or flowers, asked the Sun: ‘Powerful Sun, please allow me to dress this cold country in flowers. Indeed the Rainbow has spent nearly all its colours, but some violet one is left. Please allow me to decorate these countries with a lilac colour!’ The Sun had no objections. So the Spring Goddess took handfuls of lilac rays and threw them onto Scandinavian bushes and fields. When they reached the ground they turned into hundreds and thousands of magnificent lilac flowers. However, soon there were too many lilac flowers everywhere, so the Sun exclaimed: ‘Enough, that will do! Don’t you see there is too much lilac everywhere!’ – ‘That’s fine, - said the Goddess, - never mind. This miserable land, covered in ice, has never seen sweet roses, violets, magnolia or tuberose. Let them at least enjoy forests of lilacs’. But the Sun did not listen, he mixed all the colours, added white and sent them to bushes and trees, which turned into white lilac. This legend explains why lilacs begin to blossom in the first warm days of spring and only in Sweden and Norway their blossom is so lavish and rich. To Europe the lilac came in XVI century from Asia Minor, from Persia. Angrerius Busberg first brought it to Vienna from Constantinople in 1564. He served there as Emperor Ferdinand’s ambassador at Sultan Suleiman’s court. Although it was rather rare in Europe in XVI century, it became very popular, owing to its resilience to cold weather and beautiful flowers with wonderful fragrance. It too the lilac 40 year to turn into a common plant in all European gardens and parks. It became particularly popular in Germany: it was used for bouquets, wreaths, gardens and for decorating rooms. Children made crosses and wreaths of it, dried and stored them. They searched for ‘happiness’, i.e. flowers with five, six, ten or more petals, compared to the usual four. Increased number of petals was caused by ‘merge’ of several flowers – ability only the lilac can boast of. Such flowers have sometimes from 20 to 30 and even more petals and they are considered as ‘happiness’. A young girl, having received a bouquet of lilacs, would start the search of these ugly flowers and the more there are petals in them, the happier her prospects are. It is particular common for white lilac and is less frequently found in its violet variety. It is believed that this flower should be dried and kept in a book or simply eaten. There are varieties with three petals rather than usual four. Then they are treated as misfortune tellers. In England lilac is believed to be a flower of grief or misfortune, maybe because of its violet colour. An old English saying tells that a person carrying lilac will never wear a wedding ring. In the old days English girls would send lilac branches to proposing admirers they did not fancy. In England the purple variety of the lilac was the most common for a long time. The following tale describes how the white variety appeared in Britain. When a rich lord disgraced a young girl and she died of grief, her friends covered her grave with lilac. The following day they came to the grave and discovered that the usual violet lilac turned into white. So it was the first white lilac in England. Today bushes of white lilac can be found in the graveyard of Way village in Hertfordshire. The scientific name of the lilac ‘Syringa vulgaris’ is derived from the Greek ‘syrinx’ — a tube or a pipe as one can remove soft cork core from its stem and make a pipe. The old legend says that the mythic god Pan used reed to make the first pipe. In French the lilac is called ‘lilas’, which gave the name to the plant. The meaning of this Persian word is ‘a flower’. In the East, where the lilac is from, it is a symbol of a sad farewell, therefore a man in love presents lilac only when a couple part or separate for good. In Germany its official name ‘Flieder’ is often replaced by ‘Hollunder’ (elder) thus confusing it with this plant and attributing to it lots of legends and stories related to the elder. In Germany there are very old big lilac bushes but the most significant among them is a huge 100 years old lilac bush in the ‘Charite’ Berlin hospital. It was planted in 1801 and has grown so big since that its three bushes are 100 steps in circle and 35 steps in diameter. The bushes are surrounded by a metal fence and look more like big trees with several thick trunks and many very big branches. Lower branches creep on the ground and give numerous sprouts, which give new bushes. Recently gardeners managed to make the white lilac blossom during the Easter and even for Christmas growing it in greenhouses. This lilac blossoms on small bushes planted in pots and is one of the best flower decorations. It is in blossom for quite a long time and does not require any particular treatment apart from watering. Those, who are willing to have lilac in blossom during winter, can easily do it themselves. In autumn they will need to plant a small budded bush in a pot, put it in a cool place and let it freeze through a little. A month before Christmas put its branches into a warm water of 30+ for six to eight hours and then put it in a warm light place. Buds will grow and give flowers and leaves. Certainly, they will not be richly covered in blossom but there will be a few flowers and they will last relatively long. They say it is possible to get similar blossom – even in winter you can cut lilac branches and put them into a cool dark place for several hours, then put them into a warm water (+30) for two to three hours and into a jug of water. |
 Paolo Mantegazza  Lilac in blossom  Lilac came to Ukraine in ancient times  The young and romantic use lilac flowers to tell fortunes |
