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School starts back soon around here. Today I thought I looked at something commonly connected to teachers, the apple.

In China apples represent peace and the blossoms are symbols of woman's beauty. In other cultures they also represent wisdom , joy, youth, and fertility. Christian tradition usually shows the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge as being represented by an apple. Adam's apples get their name from this story. It was thought that part of the fruit got stuck in Adam's throat creating the bump. In Greek we see the golden apples. Hercules had to gather some as part of his trials. After not being invited to a wedding Eris through one down into the party inscribed with the words " for the most beautiful one". Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all wanted it so they picked Paris to choose the winner. Aphrodite bribed him with the most beautiful women in the world, Helen. Aphrodite won but indirectly caused the Trojan war. One Irish folklore claims that if you peel an apple in one continuous ribbon and throw it over a woman's shoulder it will land in the shape of her future husbands initials. In Danish folklore apples wither around adulterers. Supposedly it was the falling of an apple that helped Isaac Newton come up with the idea of gravity. In Arthurian legend Avalon is suppose to mean "island of apples".