Fire Flowers
In Polish mythology, fire flowers are mystical blooms. To find this powerful plant the seeker had to enter a forest before midnight on the Eve of Kupala. The flower would climb up the stalk of the fern, and precisely at midnight it would bloom so brightly that no one could look directly at it. In order to harvest it a circle had to be drawn around it, and the seeker had to deal with demons trying to distract him/her from doing so. It was said that if you answered the voices, or faltered during the task, it would sacrifice its own life. Anyone possessing this flower gained the ability to read minds, find treasure, and repel all evils.
Read more about this topic: Polish Folk Beliefs
Famous quotes containing the words fire and/or flowers:
“There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 3:2.
“The handsomest and most interesting flowers were the great purple orchises, rising ever and anon, with their great purple spikes perfectly erect, amid the shrubs and grasses of the shore. It seemed strange that they should be made to grow there in such profusion, seen of moose and moose-hunters only, while they are so rare in Concord.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)