Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

create an enchant- ing scent. The wind god, Zephyr, blew the clouds especially for her, the Queen of Flowers, so she could open her petals to the sun and blossom under a flow of the radiant rays of the rising sun.

Long ago ancient Romans also told the world how the red rose got its color. When Jupiter caught Venus bathing naked, she was confused and blushed, and the white rose turned red in her reflection. The Persians created another legend telling that the rose was a great inspiration for a nightingale. The bird began to sing when roses first blossomed, and overcome by their strong aroma a nightingale dropped to the earth. Its spilled blood stained the white rose petals and turned them red. Since ancient times, the rose was praised not only for its beauty and aroma but also for its medicinal properties. Pliny listed more than 32 remedies made from roses. Avicenna highly valued rose in his practice and was the first to make rose water. Russian Empress Catherine the Great loved roses very much and made her own rose water, which she added in combination with rose petals to her baths for her joy and to cleanse and tone her skin and prevent wrinkles. Probably she knew well that both the leaves and petals of roses clear from the body toxins and heat which produce rashes, itch, and inflammatory problems.

So again, don’t wait until “one day.”

Mix your special herbal bath now, add pre-washed fresh petals of the red rose, and slide down into the bath water. Rest your head on a pillow and let the herbs do their wondrous work of removing harmful toxins from your skin cells and soothing your spirit. While you are relaxing and listening to beautiful music, you can read this Russian folk tale about one amazing scarlet flower which brought love and happiness to one young girl. I told it to my children in my own interpretation and they liked it very much.

122 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Once upon a time in a far-away land lived one

very successful merchant. He traveled many

times a year to all parts of the world to sell his goods. He also brought home nice gifts to his three daughters from

his travels.

This time he was going to leave for a long journey into a country no one had ever heard of. Before his departure, the merchant came to his three daughters to say goodbye and asked them what gifts they would like him to bring from his voyage. The first daughter, Pasha, asked him to bring her a gold crown. The second daughter, Dasha, wanted a crystal mirror, and the third and youngest daughter, Masha, asked modestly for a little scarlet flower.

The merchant left for his voyage. As soon as his journey began, he easily found a beautiful golden crown for his older daughter and a fine crystal mirror for his second daughter. However, he couldn’t find anywhere the gift for his youngest daughter, the scarlet flower. He was looking everywhere and couldn’t find it until he entered a beautiful emerald green forest. He kept walking, and the forest’s narrow path brought him to a magnificent white palace built right in the center of the forest. He walked inside through the tall wrought-iron black with gold gate and found himself in the spacious courtyard with a blooming flowerbed in the middle of it. On the top of the flowerbed he saw a beautiful flower growing there. He had never seen a similar one anywhere.

The merchant approached closer to the flower and saw it was the scarlet flower his third daughter, Masha, wanted so badly. He picked up the flower carefully, and suddenly he was confronted by a hideous beast. The beast was very angry and said to the merchant, “If you want this flower, you must send one of your daughters back to my enchanted forest to live in my palace forever.”

Afraid, the merchant agreed. Soon he returned home and gave the gifts to his two daughters. Then he gave the scarlet flower to his youngest daughter and told her that she had to return a favor for having this rare flower and go to the beast. Masha was so happy that her father had found the scarlet flower that she agreed to go alone to the emerald forest and live forever in the beast’s palace.

Ourselves, Our Children, Allergens, and Happy Cells @ 123

The next day Masha went to the forest to live in

the beast’s palace. Several servants met her there and helped her settle in, but the beast himself didn’t show up. However, every day he sent her beautiful fresh roses and

gifts. One day he sent her a funny-speaking red-blue parrot; another day, a merry brownish-orange monkey. The third day he gave her a tiny, cute white puppy. Then she got from the beast a beautiful grey pony with yellow spots, so she could ride around the palace in the green grassy meadows shining with small drops of the morning dew.

The beast and his servants took very good care of Masha, and she felt loved. She was happy to live in the palace, but she always wondered what the mysterious beast looked like. She never saw him. In the morning she walked in