Wreath Greco-Roman world, wreaths were used as an adornment that could represent a person’s occupation, rank, their achievements and status. The wreath that was commonly used was the laurel wreath. The use of this wreath comes from the Greek myth involving Apollo, Zeus’ son and the god of life and light, who fell in love with the nymph Daphne. When he pursued her she fled and asked the river god Peneus to help her. Peneus turned her into a laurel tree. From that day, Apollo wore a wreath of laurel on his head. Laurel wreaths became associated with what Apollo embodied;
The Glass Bead Game story is taken from Greek legend of the nymph Castalia, who was transformed into an inspiration-granting fountain by the god Apollo. Freedman wrote in his biography of Hesse that the tensions caused by the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany directly contributed to the creation of the "Glass Bead Game" as a response to the oppressive times. "The educational province of Castalia, which provided a setting for the novel, came to resemble Hesse's childhood Swabia physically while assuming more and more the function of his adopted home, neutral Switzerland, which in turn embodied his own antidote to the crises