Our legends so that we can better understand ourselves, our countries and peoples.
Armenia,Yerevan N43 high school
The legend of Akhtamar
From a little village besides a laughing lake of Van a man every night leaped into the waves. He cleaved the waves needing no boat towards the isle remote. On the dark island every night Tamar was waiting for him, they loved each other very much. And finally they met and... .silence... Only
sound of waves are heard. Then he leaves being lost in the waves and Tamar prays for him. But there were people who spoiled everything,certain
willains full of spite put out the guiding fire, and the lover lost his way. In the morning waves carried his frozen corse with only two words on his lips
‘Ah, Tamar’. And people decided to call the island Akhtamar.
pupil- Anahit Hovhannisyan
teacher- Hripsime Koshetsyan
Armenia, Artashat N2 school
The Legend of the Mountain of a Thousand Springs
Once upon a time, thousands of pure springs stated flowing from the top of the highest and most majestic mountain. One blonde-haired girl found them and decided to climb the slope and collect some thyme. By the middle of the day, she was tired and sat down by a random spring.
The world was quiet and the only sound that broke the silence was the murmur of water, like a melody of an unfamiliar song. Then she saw a long-tailed pheasant approach the spring. It was wounded and its wing was bleeding. The pheasant leaned to the spring, drank a little water, and – oh, wonder of wonders! – the bleeding stopped and the wound was gone. Amazed, she quickly walked back to the valley and told everybody about the miracle she had witnessed.
At first, people ignored her because they thought she was making up the story. Yet the girl continued to insist on it stubbornly. Then the villagers decided to follow her trail in the mountains. Up there they found many springs, but no matter how hard they looked, they could not find the same magic spring. The next morning they went there again, but again, it was all in vain. People found many new springs, but the water in them was ordinary. Even the girl herself could not find the sacred spring anymore, as the evidence – the feathers of the long-tailed pheasant – had disappeared.
The magic spring disappeared without a trace, but the others remained. Thus, people found a unique place in Armenia – a mountain of a thousand springs.
Armenia, Artashat N2 school
The Legend of the Apricot
They say that the fruits that grow in the Ararat valley taste of the sun, after all, they grow in the foothills of the sacred Mount Ararat. That mountain looks like a giant pyramid, which attracts the sun’s rays and reflects them generously onto the valley. That is why, perhaps, Armenia has the sweetest grapes, as well as the finest local apricot variety.
Apricots grow in other places too, of course. But in ancient times people used to say that the apricot grown in the Ararat valley was a king and the apricots growing elsewhere were the courtiers. The taste of the Armenian apricots is so unique that Armenia is recognized around the world as the country of apricots. The ancestors of modern Armenians claimed that the fruit could treat 12 different maladies.
Legend has it that the apricot was the only fruit tree, which the patriarch Noah preserved on his ark in order to revive it for the people. The Flood permanently destroyed many fruit trees, but the apricot survived. Today, people throughout the world can benefit from this inexhaustible source of joy and light, which reminds them of the sunlight that embraces the Ararat valley.
Armenia, Artashat N2 school
When the patriarch Noah set foot on solid ground, he knelt down and took out a small sprout, which one of the survivors had managed to bring along with him onto the ark. It was a vine and the patriarch planted it at the foot of Mount Ararat in the valley. That is the reason Armenia is considered the birthplace of grapes. Those grapes were different from the grapes growing in other places. You could not find grapes like that anywhere on earth.
When the first residents of the valley tasted the grapes, they were astonished by their wonderful taste. They ate the grapes from dawn until dusk and could not get enough. The harvest was so bountiful that all the platters in people’s homes were filled with grapes. Since there was no place in their houses left, they stuffed the remaining grapes into barrels and lowered them down into the cellar.
They ate the grapes throughout summer and in autumn. Finally, there were no more grapes left.
One day in the dead of winter, they remembered the grapes that they had hidden in the cellar. They went down to the cellar but found that the grapes were squashed and shrivelled. They felt sad to pour out the last fragrance of the summer into the pit, so someone took a sip from a barrel of grape juice. Then he gasped, smacked his lips with enjoyment and poured himself some more.
Others came too. Soon they all began to drink the sweet and slightly tart juice, and there was so much joy that it seemed as though summer days were coming back. That was how the first wine was born in the land of Armenia.
Armenia, Artashat N2 school
Poland, Grammar School in Alwernia
Polish legends
Q U I Z Z E S
Photos that I have done in Warszaw in 2015. Created by Armenian students for Polish partners.