Once upon a time there were two little twin girls, called Golden Flower and Silver Flower. As they grew up, the two young sisters played and did everything together. They both had skilled hands and were very deft at embroidery. Everyone loves the bright little girls.
At the age of eighteen, they were as pretty as flowers. No end of suitors came seeking their hands in marriage, but the twins were not interested in marriage. “We were born together so let’s be buried together, ” they said. Time passed in this way until one day Golden Flower suddenly felt sick. Soon she had a temperature. She was hot all over and red spots began to break out. She could not leave her bed.
The twins’ distracted parents called a doctor. “The young lady has a bad fever and red spots, ” said the doctor. “No medicine can save her. “Silver Flower would not leave her sister’s bedside for even a moment, and cried her eyes sore. Before long she too fell ill. “We hope that after we die we can become a medicinal plant that cures fever,” they said. “That way, people who catch fever like us won’t face certain death. ”
After they died the twin sisters were buried together. Sure enough, one year later a kind of vine began to grow from their grave. It spread and spread, and blossomed with golden flowers. Remembering the girls’ dying wish, the local people picked the flowers and stewed a liquid from them. When anyone who caught fever drank the liquid, the fever soon vanished, so the plant was named Golden-Silver Flower (the honeysuckle) after the two girls.
