There is a lovely flower called the pansy, which grows in gardens. And there is a fairy story that tells us where he pansy came from in first place.

The story tells abut a wicked queen who was angry because her son, the prince, wanted to marry a beautiful girl who worked in the place kitchen.

The queen ordered her magician to turn the beautiful girl into something ugly so that the prince would not want to marry her.

The magician tried to turn he girl into a toad. But she was so sweet and lovely that the worst the magician could do was turning her into a flower-the pansy.

Image via Wikipedia

Even today, some people think they can see face in the pansy’s five petals. And if you pull off the petals one by one, very slowly and carefully, you will uncover a fat little king, sitting there with his crown on his feet in a pail of hot water.

Pansies grow in almost every color you can think of. Their petals are thick and soft- like velvet. Perhaps it is the heart shapes of the pansies that makes people think of love when they look at them. Another name for pansies is “kiss-me’’.

One thing pansies don’t have is fragrance. There is another fairy story about that. That story goes that once upon a time pansies smelled so wonderfully that people trampled upon the meadow grass in a rush to pick them. With the grass trampled down, the cows had nothing to eat and began to starve.

So the pansies prayed that their smell be taken away. The story goes that their prayer was granted, so today pansies do not have any fragrance.

But they are pretty. And even if you keep picking them, they will keep growing almost al summer.