Also, when you pull petals off a daisy you say "He loves me, he loves me not... etc". It's a common (relatively speaking) construction because of that.
A really interesting observation.
Also, this construction seems to be fixed in the name of another flower: forget-me-not, doesn't it? The Russian name of the flower is "незабудка", and I find this similarity to be very strange. Maybe, the name in one of these languages was borrowed from the other? (Dragunkin would tell you at once which language was the borrower
) Or do both of them come from the same third source?
Wikipedia has the following:
commonly called Forget-me-nots. Its common name was calqued from the French, "ne m'oubliez pas" and first used in English in c. 1532. Similar names and variations are found in many languages.
In a German legend, God named all the plants when a tiny unnamed one cried out, "Forget-me-not, O Lord!" God replied, "That shall be your name."
Henry IV adopted the flower as his symbol during his exile in 1398, and retained the symbol upon his return to England the following year.
In 15th-century Germany, it was supposed that the wearers of the flower would not be forgotten by their lovers. Legend has it that in medieval times, a knight and his lady were walking along the side of a river. He picked a posy of flowers, but because of the weight of his armour he fell into the river. As he was drowning he threw the posy to his loved one and shouted "Forget-me-not." It was often worn by ladies as a sign of faithfulness and enduring love.
Cool stuff.
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