Village Country Diary A good crop
The first blackberry!
Below: Old orchard apples, Tardebigge
R HARVEST
later date. There are several native “vines” it could be – ivy, honeysuckle, clematis, hop, for example – but the consensus is that it probably means bramble. So we have a tasty pair for this month – blackberry and apple! Apple trees carry a weight of myths and legends, just as in some years they are bowed down with the weight of apples. We have our native crab apple, and for many centuries have bred other, sweeter and larger, varieties. At some point the tree of knowledge in the Bible was identified with the apple in our translations, though it wasn’t necessarily that in the original language. So the apple is the tree of wisdom and
knowledge, but also because it led to the “Fall” of human beings from immortality into human life, it is also a tree of sex and fertility, often associated with women. It car- ries messages of love and health. The fact that it is a host to the magical
mistletoe gives it even more significance, and in Celtic legends it grows at the en-
continues overleaf Apple blossom The Village September 2018 53
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