I saw your online inquiry about the story of the bleeding heart. My mother used to tell this story and take the bleeding heart flower apart to form the pieces of the story, two pink rabbits, tow oriental slippers, a dagger and a heart. She was also a writer of children's stories. She wrote the following true story about my sister who loved the story of the bleeding heart. She imbedded the folklore story of the bleeding heart into her story as follows:

Ann's Story of the Bleeding Heart
by Elma Lang

Ann thought she was the most unhappy girl in the world. Although she had gone to her new school for a whole week, she hadn't made a single friend.

Things might have been different if she hadn't been so frightened that first day. Some of the girls had spoken to her, but her throat had become so tight that she hadn't been able to answer them. Maybe after that the girls had though she was stuck up or unfriendly. At any rate, then had left it up to her to make the next move.

Ann stopped to pick a bouquet of lilies of the valley and bleeding hearts for her new teacher. Many were growing in the garden of her new home.

As soon as she was in their classroom after the morning bell rang, Ann took the flowers to her teacher.

"My what lovely bleeding hearts!" exclaimed Miss Johnson, smiling at Ann. "Isn't that a sad name for such pretty flowers? Why to you suppose it was given that name?"

"Don't you know the story?" asked Ann in surprise. "My mother told it to me when I was just a little girl."

" Perhaps you can tell the story to the class," suggested Miss Johnson.

Ann looked at the class and felt horrified. Then she thought, I know the story well, and I love it. Of course I should share it.

Both her hands and her knees were shaking as she broke off one of the flowers, but she bravely stood before the class and told her story. "Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess. Young men from far and near came to pay her court. But the princess was very vain and would have nothing to do with any of them. A young prince from the neighboring country fell deeply in love with her. She ignored him like th others, though he tried and tried to win her heart. One day the prince found a pair of pretty pink rabbits at the market. He sent them to the princess thinking 'these will surely melt her heart.'" Ann carefully broke off the two outside petals of the flower in her hand. She placed them on the teacher's desk. Sure enough they looked like a pair of pink rabbits.
"But the princess went right on ignoring him," Ann continued with her story. "Then the prince sent her a pair of beautiful Oriental slippers." From the front and back of the flower, Ann took off the two long petals. One could easily imagine the dainty heels, the slender insteps, and the widened toes. The looked like a pair of real Oriental slippers.

Ann had to wait until the oh's and ah's of the class had quieted down before she could go on.

"Still the princess would have nothing to do with him. The young prince was so heart broken that he took his dagger and drove it into his heart." The remains of the flower in Ann's hand made the outline of a heart with a line down the center. Ann broke out the stamen, which had made the line. It looked like a dagger. She put it through the center of the heart. Ann held her hand so that the class could see the perfect heart pierced by the dagger.

Ann went on with the story. "As soon as the prince was dead, the princess realized that she had really loved him. 'As long as I live, my heart shall bleed for my prince,' she wept"

"That" finished Ann, "is the story of the bleeding heart.

"Show me how to do it," said Donna, who sat in the front seat.

"Me too, me too!" cried the other girls.

"Ann may show you at recess," Miss Johnson stated firmly.

My story has made everything all right, Ann thought happily as she went back
to her desk. I won't have any trouble making friends now.