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Tropæolum Stories: Hercules

The river god, Acheloüs, and Hercules, the god of strength, struggled together. Hercules threw the god Acheloüs and seized him by the throat. Then Acheloüs, in order to escape, changed himself into a serpent.

This did not help him, for Hercules seized him by the neck and would have choked him, but Acheloüs again changed his shape.

He became a bull, but this was not enough to defend him from the great strength of Hercules, who seized him by the neck and dragged him to the ground, and in the struggle rent one of his horns from his head.

The nymphs of the brooks and the fountains, who were related to the river god, Acheloüs, consecrated the horn and gave it to the Goddess of Plenty.

SATURN.

That is one story, but some say the following is the history of cornucopia.

You know Saturn, the oldest of the gods, had a bad habit of swallowing his children. When Jupiter was born, his mother, Rhea, did not wish his father, Saturn, to swallow him; so she gave him to the care of the daughters of the king of Crete.

They fed him on milk from the goat Amalthea, and watched over him and protected him so that his father should not find him. The people of Crete danced about him and made such a noise when he cried that his father could not hear him.

He must have cried very loud indeed to make all that necessary; but then, he was destined to become a very great god, so no doubt he did make more noise than ordinary babies, Out of gratitude to his kind nurses, and also as a token of esteem to the good Amalthea, Jupiter broke off one of her horns and endowed it with a very wonderful power. It became filled at once with whatever its possessor might wish!

This was a horn of plenty indeed!

Now you know both stories, and you may take your choice as to which one you will believe. Whether our tropæolum had either of these in mind, it certainly made a very dainty cornucopia when it constructed its honey-horn and filled it for the bees, the butterflies, and the humming birds.

JUPITER.

The tropæolums we have in our gardens are not the only kinds; there are, in fact, some forty different tropæolums living in South America and Mexico, and in Peru there is one which has large tuberous roots filled with plant food, which is also good food for man, and is eaten in some parts of South America instead of potatoes!

How would you like to dig your potatoes out of the nasturtium bed?

It certainly would be a pretty place to work on