Can onions help us find love? Are potatoes evil? Do plums like heavy metal music? We’re delving into some old British folk beliefs surrounding the fruit and vegetables we grow in our gardens.
People in the past held many fascinating superstitions about the food they grew, including how it should be grown and the ways it could be used once harvested. From rituals to ensure a good harvest to folk medicine to love spells carved into onions, we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting examples of fruit and vegetable folklore. And who knows, perhaps there is still some wisdom to be found in these ancient beliefs?
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Apples
Wassailing is an old British tradition, with possible pagan origin. This custom is a way of blessing apple trees to encourage a good harvest and is especially associated with cider-making regions of Southern England such as Somerset.
During the winter months, often Twelfth Night, locals would dress up in costumes and greenery and visit the orchard. Pieces of toast would be placed in the branches of the oldest or largest tree in the orchard to attract good spirits. Cider would be poured over the roots and wassailers would bang pots and pans and make as much noise as possible to drive away the bad spirits.
Worth a try? Well, there could be an even better reward than a bountiful apple harvest… One Somerset folktale tells that when a man offered his last mug of cider to the trees in his orchard, he was rewarded by the Apple Tree Man, the spirit of the oldest tree in the orchard, who told the man where he could dig up a horde of buried gold!
Plums
In a similar, but perhaps even more bizarre, vein is the Pershore Plum Charmer.
Pershore, in Worcestershire, traditionally had a “charmer” who took on the role of playing music to the plum trees in summer to encourage a good harvest and ward off spirits. The first plum charmer on record was 16th-century farmer Thomas Nevill, who said the fruit tasted sweeter after listening to his penny whistle.
This isn’t a tradition confined to the past though! Pershore still has an annual plum festival, which involves the crowning of a plum princess. In 2012, the town appointed its first Plum Charmer in 400 years as it faced a particularly poor summer. Solicitor Paul Johnson got out his clarinet and played some tunes to the trees – apparently, they were fond of music by Deep Purple and The Stones!
Potatoes
Are potatoes evil?
People in the 1600s certainly believed so. Since they weren’t mentioned in the Bible, potatoes were said to be the Devil’s food. To counter that evil, they had to be planted on Good Friday… with a sprinkling of Holy Water for good measure!
The other theory is simply that Good Friday was the first day off since Christmas, so a good time for a bit of gardening… but we’ll let you decide which you believe!
Peas
Peas, on the other hand, can be very lucky. Don’t be disappointed if you open a pea pod and find only one pea inside… it means good things are coming your way, apparently!
It’s also lucky to open a pea pod with nine peas inside. Take the ninth pea and throw it over your shoulder, making a wish as you do so. It might just come true.
It was also believed that peas could help you get rid of a wart. Touch the wart with a pea, wrap it in a piece of paper, then bury the paper. As the pea rots away, so too shall the wart.
Blackberries
Blackberries are a lovely summer treat, but folklore tells us to be careful with the first and last of the season. The first of the season should aways be left for the fairies to enjoy, it is said. After that, you can enjoy all the blackberries you like until 29 September. Folklore says this is the day the Devil was cast from heaven. He landed in a blackberry patch and, depending on the variation of the legend, either spat or urinated on the berries in annoyance, and forevermore this was the date from which no more berries should be eaten.
Interestingly, blackberries do actually begin to deteriorate around this date, so there is some truth in the advice to avoid them from this point onwards.
Turnips
Before pumpkin carving, there was turnip carving. At Samhain – an ancient pagan festival marking the end of summer – ancient Celts believed that spirits could roam freely between the realms of the living and the dead. To protect against these spirits, people began to carve produce such as turnips, potatoes and radishes. They would be hollowed out and lit candles would be placed inside. It was believed by placing them outside their house or carrying them as lanterns, people would be protected from any supernatural visitors they ran into.
Onions
Found yourself stuck in a love triangle, unable to choose between two suitors? According to folklore, you’d do well to turn to onions for advice…
It was once believed that if a woman found herself torn between two lovers, she should carve each of their names into an onion. Whichever onion sprouted first would tell her the better match. Apparently, this was particularly effective if done on December 1.
Indeed, onions were considered good for any kind of advice – simply think of your question and carve ‘yes’ and ‘no’ into two onions, then wait for your answer to sprout! I wonder if they’re any good with lottery numbers?
Gooseberries
On the Isle of Wight, you may find a strange, distinctively hairy kind of fairy…
Parents would warn their children not to go helping themselves to the unripe berries in the gooseberry patch or they would risk being caught by the gooseberry wife, a huge, hairy caterpillar-like fairy.
Parsley
Parsley has had associations with death since Ancient Greek times, when it was planted on graves and considered sacred to Persephone, queen of the Underworld.
Parsley seeds take a long time to germinate, and folklore has a whole host of explanations as to why it can be so difficult. Some believed that it had to be sown nine times before it would take, because the devil would take the first eight rounds. Others believed boiling water should be poured on the site you wish to plant it first to scare away the devil. Some beliefs say it will only grow for the wicked, others that it will only grow for bachelors.
You shouldn’t try transplanting it either, as this could offend the spirit of the plant so much that it would seek revenge in the form of illness, injury, or even death! Cutting parsley while in love could kill the object of your affections, and in Surrey it was believed that growing it at all would mean a death in the family by the end of the year. Who knew this little herb could be so dangerous!
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