Editing Pansy (section)

=== Traditions and uses ===
[[File:Best Wishes Pansies.JPG|thumb|upright|Greeting card, {{circa|1900}}]]

In [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', the "juice of the heartsease" is a love potion and "on sleeping eyelids laid, will make a man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees." (II.1).

In the [[language of flowers]], a honeyflower and a pansy left by a lover for his beloved means, "I am thinking of our forbidden love". In 1858, the writer James Shirley Hibberd wrote that the French custom of giving a bride a bouquet of pansies (thoughts) and marigolds (cares) symbolized the woes of domestic life rather than marital bliss.<ref>Hibberd, James Shirley. ''The fuchsia, pansy and phlox: their history, properties, cultivation, propaganda, and general management in all seasons''. Groombridge and Sons, 1858.</ref>

A German fable tells of how the pansy lost its perfume. Originally pansies would have been very fragrant, growing wild in fields and forests.<ref name=Silverthorne2003 /> It was said that people would trample the grass completely in eagerness to pick pansies. Unfortunately, the people’s cows were starving due to the ruined fields, so the pansy prayed to give up her perfume. Her prayer was answered, and without her perfumed scent, the fields grew tall, and the cows grew fat on the fresh green grass.<ref name=Silverthorne2003 />

American pioneers thought that “a handful of violets taken into the farmhouse in the spring ensured prosperity, and to neglect this ceremony brought harm to baby chicks and ducklings.”<ref name=Silverthorne2003 /> On account of its place in American hearts, a game called “Violet War” also arose. In this game, two players would intertwine the hooks where the pansy blossoms meet the stems, then attempt to pull the two flowers apart like wishbones. Whoever pulled off the most of their opponent’s violet heads was proclaimed the winner.<ref name=Silverthorne2003 /> Young American settlers also made pansy dolls by lining up the pansy flower “faces”, pasting on leaf skirts and twig arms to complete the figures.<ref name=Silverthorne2003 />

The pansy is also used in [[herbalism]] and [[traditional medicine]].<ref>Lewis, W. H., Elvin-Lewis, M. P. F. (2003). ''Medical Botany. Plants Affecting Human Health'' (p.555). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.</ref>