The story from Greek Mythology of how Lotus, the beautiful water nymph, whose unrequited love for the hero, Hercules, led to her pining away until she died is fairly well known. Fortunately the goddess, Hebe, turned her into the first waterlily.
Personally, I prefer two quite similar tales told by Native American tribes. In the first a star maiden came to a Dakota chief named Red Strawberry Man in a dream and told him that she wanted to come down and live amongst the Dakota people. The chief sent his son to fetch the wise man of the tribe to ask him about this. The wise man lived on the opposite shore of the lake and, in his haste and in the darkness, the son's canoe struck a floating log. The star maiden, who was travelling with him, fell overboard and drowned. The following morning, in the same place, there was a waterlily with shining yellow flowers growing.
In the version told by the Chippewa the star maiden wished to get closer to the tribe over whom she shone at night. Not knowing how to achieve this she appeared to a young man of the tribe in a vision and asked him to consult the elders about her problem. Their suggestion was that she become the heart of a flower. Firstly she became a mountain rose but found that she was still not close enough. So she became a prairie flower, but this presented the danger of either being eaten by or trampled upon by the bison who lived there. In the end she decided to float on the lake next to which the tribe lived and when she spread her wings out over the water she became the first waterlily.
On that note I depart for the MGS AGM in Athens, but keep watching this space for more tall tales when I return.
