“Strawberries and cream for supper,” sang out the boy named
Billy, “wild ones. Got ’em over in the clearing in the woods
where the fire ran through last year. Whoppers! I wonder how they
ever got there, and why do we call them strawberries? They are
far from being the color of straw. Just look at my hands.”
“Look at your face, too, Billy,” laughed Somebody. “You surely
did splash.”
“Guess I did,” said Billy, as he repaired the damage. “I couldn’t
resist those strawberries. Where did they get the name from?”
“Nobody knows--at least nobody whom I have been able to trace,”
said Somebody. “I’ve always been interested in that question
myself, and I’ve consulted many authorities and have found out
just exactly as much as the two people found out from each other
in the early English rhyme, which goes:
“Ye manne of ye wildernesse asked me,
How many strauberies growe in ye sea?
I answer maybe as I thought goode
As manie red herring as growe in ye woode.”
“That sounds as though they didn’t find out a blessed thing,”
said the boy named Billy.
“Exactly,” laughed Somebody. “Izaak Walton’s tribute to the
strawberry in the ‘Compleat Angler’ is very well known. He said,
‘Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God
never did.’ The only information I have been able to gather is
that ‘the strawberry is a perennial herb of the genus fragaria,
order of rosacea,’--that it ‘appears to have been a native
of Eastern North America where it appears as a common wild
strawberry.’ The strawberry seems to have been grown in gardens
less than six hundred years, for though knowledge of it goes back
to the time of Virgil, and perhaps earlier, it was not cultivated
by the people.
“The Germans have some beautiful legends concerning it. It is
said that the Goddess Frigga was very fond of the fruit and that
it was supposed to be her task to go with the children to gather
them on St. John’s day; and that on that day no mother who had
lost a little child would taste a strawberry because if she did,
the little one in Paradise could have none; because the mother on
earth had already had the share belonging to it.
“The fairies in the West of England are very careful of the
strawberry crop and woe betide the one who picks the blooms or
the unripe fruit. The farmers are always careful not to displease
the fairies and always leave a great many ripe berries for them,
as they are known to be very fond of them. The Bavarian farmer,
knowing the capricious disposition of the elves, is said to tie a
basket of the ripe berries between the horns of his cow so that
they may sit and enjoy them in comfort and also be more friendly
toward the cow.”
“That’s all right interesting,” said the boy named Billy, “but it
doesn’t explain why there are berries in the clearing in the wood
now, where there never were any before, nor tell us why they are
called strawberries.”
“I fancy the birds and the winds could tell you how the
strawberry seeds came to the clearing in the wood,” said
Somebody; “and as for the other, let us keep our minds and our
ears open and perhaps we shall hear more about it in some way or
other.”
“I can hear something right now that satisfies me,” said the boy
named Billy; “that’s the dinner gong. Me for wild strawberries
and Jersey cream!”