I sing the Poppy! The frail snowy weed! The flower of Mercy! … The Poppy hath a charm for pain and woe. Mary A. Barr
In general, the Poppy is a symbol of the Great Mother (from whom everything was born in our world, absolutely everything). Dedicated to all the lunar and nightly deities, it ymbolizes fertility, oblivion, and idleness.
Meanwhile, In China, it means retirement, rest, beauty, success. However, as a source of opium – disintegration and evil. In Christianity, the blood red poppy represents the sufferings of Christ and the sleep of death. For the Greeks and Romans – the period of sleep and death of the plant world, the emblem of Demeter (Ceres), Persephone, Venus, Hypnos and Morpheus. But due to its fertility, considered the flower of the goddess Hera, who was responsible for fertility and marriage.
However, the most common legend about the poppy is not associated with paganism, but with Christianity. After the creation of the world by God, everyone was happy: people, animals, plants, the sky, and water. Only Night remained unhappy. She was very saddened by the fact that she had to hide her natural beauty under the veil. She invented various tricks – stars, fireflies, to somehow become lighter. But it was all in vain. Besides, people disliked the Night, because it frightened and caused sadness.
So, God decided to take pity on the poor Night and created Dreams. Since then, Night has ceased to frighten people. On the contrary, people began to wait for it, as a welcome guest. And on the pristine Earth everything was calm and wonderful, until sin awoke in people. The man conceived the idea of killing his neighbor. Dream tried to prevent it, but sin was too strong and did not allow Dream to come to him. Then Dream became angry and hit the Earth with his own knife, Night came to the rescue and breathed into him the stream of life. So on our planet appeared poppy. Which still retains its sleep-causing power.