The Whortle-Berry. 149 



minable. Probably the word was introduced after the 

 same manner as in a later age "asphodel," "iris," and 

 " amaranth " were used by Milton. Virgil was indebted, 

 perhaps, to Theocritus for his imagery, for he loved to 

 tread in the wake of the Sicilian, and in that case was 

 thinking of the beautiful figure of the " inscribed hyacinth 

 (x. 28). " Whortle " is said by Dr. Prior to be a mediaeval 

 corruption of myrtillus, which itself is supposed to refer 

 to the somewhat myrtle-like character of the foliage. 

 " Hurtle" he considers to be another spelling of the same 

 word. Another explanation is found in the Anglo-Saxon 

 wyrtil, a small shrub, diminutive of wyrt, the old Northern 

 name for a plant of any kind, and preserved to this day 

 in fifty such appellations in the vernacular, as milk-wort, 

 salt-wort, star-wort, blush-wort, rib-wort. " Hurts," Prof. 

 Skeat reminds us, are in Heraldry blue or purple roundels, 

 imitating and named from the berries, just as green 

 roundels are called pomes, or apples.* Bilberry is thought 

 to be the Danish bollebaer, meaning round or ball berry. 

 Blaeberry, or bleaberry, is equivalent to blue-berry, the 

 epithet here carrying the original Scandinavian sense 

 retained in the phrase to u be beaten black and blue." 

 " Whinberry" would seem to mean the berry produced in 

 waste places, where whins and heather grow, just as the 

 Campanula rotundifolia, the "bluebell of Scotland," is 

 the " heath-bell," literally the wilderness-bell. 



Berries of a dark-red colour, acid and austere, not fit 

 for eating, though available for the preparation of jelly, 



* Notes and Queries, Dec. 20, 1879, p. 495. 



