In Greek mythological legend, Hyacinthus, a beautiful Laconian youth was beloved by Apollo, the sun-god, and by Zephyrus, the west-wind. One day Hyacinthus matched Apollo in a game of quoits, a sport similar to horseshoe pitching, where flat metal rings were thrown over a peg. The jealous Zephyrus blew a quoit thrown by Apollo from its course, and the heavy ring smote Hyacinthus on the head and killed him. The grieved Apollo changed the blooddrops of his dead friend into a beautiful flower Hyacinth (hyacinthus). Symbolizing the vegetation scorched by the hot disc of the summer sun and its resurrection in spring, this legend was commemorated in ancient Greece in the yearly Hyacinthia festival.