ROSE LEGENDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 7 (Supplement)

ROSE LEGENDS.

According to old legends the red rose was originally white until Eve, charmed with its beauty, kissed it, and its vivid blushes have remained to this day. Another legend describes how the crown of thorns used at the Crucifixion was composed of dog-rose brier. A robin, which up to that time had a white breast, attempted to pluck away the thorns from Our Lord's brow, and in doing so the blood stained its breast crimson, and so it has remained ever since. There is a pretty little legend concerning the moss rose. One day an angel was sent to earth on an errand of love, but people treated him coldly and refused to give him shelter. Tired and weary at night-time he sat down to rest under a rose-bush, where he remained safe until morning. "Thou hast given me the shelter that man hath denied, and henceforth thou shalt be cherished and blessed by the Dew of Heaven that shall fall upon thee and nourish thee," the 1 angel declared to the rose-bush, and straightway the green moss collected round the stem, gathering and holding the dew-drops. During the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of York and Lancaster, the badges were the Red Rose for Lancaster and the White Rose for York, and each soldier wore the emblem of his side in his cap. It is said that there was growing in a monastery garden in Wiltshire one particular rose-bush, which, during the Civil War, had borne at the same time red and white roses. When the marriage of Henry of Lancaster to Elizabeth of York brought peace, all its flowers blossomed forth with petals striped in red and white. People came from all parts of the country to see the wonder, and hailed it as a joyful omen of future peace.