From the poet Spenser we learn that to go a-strawberrying was one of the earliest pastimes of the English people. In the "Faerie Queen" we find these lines:—
"One day, as they all three together went
To the green wood to gather strawberries,
There chaunst to them a dangerous accident."
Very old, too is the following nursery rhyme, which, nevertheless, suggests the true habitat of the F. vesca species:—
"The man of the wilderness asked me
How many strawberries grew in the sea;
I answered him, as I thought good,
'As many red herrings as grew in the wood.'"
The ambrosial combination of strawberries and cream was first named by Sir Philip Sidney. Old Thomas Tusser, of the 16th century, in his work, "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry united to as many of Good Housewifery," turns the strawberry question over to his wife, and doubtless it was in better hands than his, if his methods of culture were as rude as his poetry:—
"Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot
With strawberry roots, of the best to be got;
Such, growing abroad, among thorns in the wood,
Well chosen and picked prove excellent good."
Who "Dr. Boteler" was, or what he did, is unknown, but he made a sententious remark which led Izaak Walton to give him immortality in his work, "The Compleat Angler." "Indeed, my good schollar," the serene Izaak writes, "we may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, 'Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did;' and so if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling." If this was true of the wild Wood strawberry, how much more so of many of our aromatic rubies of to-day.
John Parkinson, the apothecary-gardener of London, whose quaint work was published in 1629, is not so enthusiastic. He says of the wild strawberry: "It may be eaten or chewed in the mouth without any manner of offense; it is no great bearer, but those it doth beare are set at the toppes of the stalks, close together, pleasant to behold, and fit for a gentlewoman to wear on her arme, &c., as a raritie instead of a flower."
In England, the strawberry leaf is part of the insignia of high rank, since it appears in the coronets of a duke, marquis, and earl. "He aspires to the strawberry leaves" is a well-known phrase abroad, and the idea occurs several times in the novels of Disraeli, the present British Premier. Thackeray, in his "Book of Snobs," writes: "The strawberry leaves on her chariot panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart."
After all, perhaps it is not strange that the Alpine species should be allied to some dark memories, for it was the only kind known when the age was darkened by passion and crime.