myth for siberian trout lily

We used to have no flowers.

The children of the lord of winter’s thawing waters, and the deity of spring’s soft fires had children who played in the clouds around the mountains. They would hover there planting lilies in the sky and making the air the softest pink.

These children played only in the sky on these beautiful first spring days. But the color covered the sun and we on earth didn’t see the sun until far into summer. The earth was slow to thaw. The summers were not warm and no one saw a spring bloom at all. All spring blooms happened high above us. Bits of dirt fell down from the sky. And in all their lives no one had ever seen a summer flower.

There was one day when the ants found their way much higher in the mountain than they ever had before, due to a flood in the river. They walked, all of the thousands of them, up the hill for generations. Until one ant, accidentally found themself walking up a cloud because the clouds were so thick there, and the ants so very tiny. As the cloud went, the ant saw the fields of spring and the children of spring planting lilies. At this field, one of the children found the ant and was immediately drawn to the strange new creature. The brilliant child of spring and the ant learned to communicate with each other and they played. When night came the child and the ant walked through the cloud’s thick maze and found their way back to earth.

When they alighted to the ground the ant promised they would return the following day, and soon many ants found their way to the fields of spring in the sky.

But spring only lasts so long - even in the clouds. Soon the children ran to spend summer elsewhere and the earth was left to its dulled, flowerless summer. When it was time for spring to return, the ants invited the children down to earth, so they could see where the ants lived. While the children were allowed to go to earth for one single day, they were forbidden to exchange anything in their time there. If they did they would have to leave their homes in the clouds forever.

While the children explored earth one of them had a loose tooth and, while they were there, the child took it out and left it in the soil as a gift for the ants. When they returned, the lord of thaw and the deity of spring’s soft fires saw something was different and were forced to expel their children down from the mountain.

“But they are so fragile,” thaw said, “how can they survive the winter? How could they have been so foolish to give such a precious gift to the ants?” The soft sun heated the earth as the children walked so they would always be warm enough, and thaw embraces the soil where her children now have home.

Hardly anyone has seen the children of spring, you can see their path from the mountain, down along the riverbanks, and the ants always have gifts at the beginning of summer. Come at the right moment, on the right day, between spring and winter, and you may glimpse them playing in the mountains, planting trout lilies in the meadows and by the stream.