68 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



European folklore sacrifices himself or herself. The straw- 

 berries are jealously guarded by a demon, who employs 

 them to tempt the young hero's he persecutes. 



For the sake of strawberries the solar heroine oft-times 

 risks her life. The sorceress sends the young girl to look 

 for strawberries under the snow, in the which task she suc- 

 cumbs. 



The strawberry here is the embodiment of spring, the sea- 

 son of green, of red, of gold, the season of the demon, ac- 

 cording as the yuest is made at the beginning of winter, or 

 at the end (in the night), so that the heroine returns laden 

 with spring fruit, or perishes in her bootless errand, as the 

 sorceress knows full well she will beforehand. Strawber- 

 ries are also an emblem of small children who have died in 

 the past; their color likewise is commemorative of homicidal 

 blood, whence it follows that popular tales, in which straw- 

 berries figure, bear a striking resemblance to those wherein 

 the Mountain Ash unmasks the murderer of the youthful 

 hero metamorphosed into a tree. 



The mythological aspects of the strawberry, occur in 

 many German popular tales and almost always in connec- 

 tion with young children. According to a German legend, 

 mothers who have lost children are careful not to eat straw- 

 berries on the eve of Sc John's ( Midsummer eve ) believing 

 that infants go up to heaven, that is to paradise, hidden in 

 the fruit. Were the mothers to eat thereof, they would dis- 

 please the Virgin Mary to whom the fruit belongs, and she 

 would refuse admission into paradise to children whose 

 mothers had stolen the fruit. 



It is with strawberry leaves that the robin red breasts in 

 English story, cover the dead bodies of the babes in the 

 wood. The solar meaning of this myth is that the wood is 

 night or winter, in the evening or at the end of autumn the 

 sun disappears in the night. The strawberries disappear and 

 reappear with the luminary, and the leaves conceal them 

 meanwhile 



The cherry is supposed to be of Asiatic origin, whence 

 according to Pliny, it was brought to Italy by Lucullus 

 after his defeat of Mithridates, king of Pontus, sixty-eight 



