This account bears a general resemblance to the legend recounted by Sir John Maundevile, who visited Bethlehem in the fourteenth century, and found there the field Floridus, wherein, he tells us, a fair maiden who had been unjustly accused of wrong was doomed to be burned; and, after praying devoutly to God that, inasmuch as she was not guilty, He would help her, and make her innocence known to all men, “she entered the fire, and immediately the fire was extinguished, and the faggots that were burning became red Rose-bushes full of Roses, and those that remained unkindled became white Rose-bushes; and these were the first Rose-trees and Roses, both white and red, that ever any man saw.” “Thus,” concludes Sir John, “was this mayden saved be the grace of God. And therfore is that feld clept the Feld of God florysscht: for it was fulle of Roses.” Southey, in his poem on the Rose, has commemorated this old story in the following lines:—
“The stake
Branches and buds, and spreading its green leaves,
Embowers and canopies the fair maid,
Who there stands glorified; and Roses, then
First seen on earth since Paradise was lost,
Profusely blossom round her, white and red.
In all their rich variety of hues.”
According to a Roumanian tradition, the Rose was originally a young and beauteous princess, who, while bathing in the sea, so dazzled the Sun with the radiance of her loveliness, that he stood still to gaze upon her, and covered her with kisses. Then for three days he forgot his duty, and obstructed the progress of night. Since that day the Lord of the Universe has changed the princess into a Rose, and this is why the Rose always hangs her head and blushes when the Sun gazes on her.
Anacreon gives the following poetic account of the origin of the Rose, connecting it with the goddess of love and beauty:—