On the etymology of strawberry

ABSTRACT

The word strawberry (Old English streawberige) is peculiar to English among the Germanic languages. There is no consensus on the etymology of the word. Several theories have been suggested: 1) the appearance of the achenes of the berry, supposedly looking like straw (= motes): 2) the runners of strawberry plants compared to straws; 3) strawberries supposedly growing where there is much straw (= grass or hay); 4) strawberries growing at ground level as straw spread as litter; 5) the practice of putting straw under strawberry plants to prevent the berries from rotting; 6) the custom of children to string wild strawberries on a straw of grass. This article favors the last of these explanations. This custom is still well known in Scandinavia and can, through various sources, be shown to have been practiced earlier in a large part of Europe, including Britain.

KEYWORDS:

• Etymology
• English
• strawberry
• ethnology
• literary sources
• children

The word strawberry is peculiar to English among the Germanic languages. The old common Germanic word was undoubtedly the predecessor of German Erdbeere and Scandinavian jordbär ‘the berry that grows close to the ground, to earth’. Actually, eorðberige is also rarely attested from Old English, where it, however, soon was surpassed by streawberige.

Carl Collin (1938: 77) reports what seems to be a Swedish counterpart: stråbär, from the province of Värmland (the localities Forshaga, Munkfors and Åmotsfors). This gains support from a record from the early twentieth century at the collections of Swedish dialect words at Institutet för språk och folkminnen (The Institute for Language and Folklore) at Uppsala, where the word appears from another nearby locality in Värmland: Ransäter. That informant raises the question whether this word actually had been brought home to Sweden by returning Swedish-Americans. It is an interesting theory and that might very well be the case. Stråbär – as a direct translation from English strawberry by Swedish immigrants to the United States – is attested 1892 in the diaries of Andrew Peterson (McKnight 1974: 121) and is also known to Nils Hasselmo (1971: 149). Collin furthermore reports stråbär from two other places in central Sweden (Vikmanshyttan in southern Dalecarlia and Köpmannebro in Dalsland), but that is highly doubtful. Collin was headmaster at a secondary school, and he got his reports on the word by interviewing his pupils, which is not an optimal method to gather unbiased information.

According to Oxford English Dictionary, ‘The reason for the name [strawberry] has been variously conjectured.’ Two theories are mentioned:

One explanation refers the first element to […] a particle of straw or chaff, a mote, describing the appearance of the achenes scattered over the surface of the strawberry; another view is that it designates the runners.

First of all, it should be emphasized that any explanation of the etymology of the word strawberry (Old English streawberige) must concern wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca) and not the cultivated ones (Fragaria x ananassa), which did not exist before the eighteenth century. The first theory cited above, for example, seems less relevant for wild strawberries where the achenes are small and not a striking feature of the berry (Bender 1934: 72; Sayers 2009: 15). The second hypothesis is certainly valid för wild strawberries since they do grow with runners, and the explanation deserves consideration. To some extent it is supported by the fact that wild cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccos) in some parts of northern Norway are called stråbær (Norsk ordbok 10: 1539). The European wild cranberry grows with slender wiry stems that might be compared to straws.

Another suggestion is that wild strawberries supposedly grow chiefly in grassy places and hay fields (Bender 1934: 73; also Liberman 2005: 81) – i.e. ‘berries which grow where there is much straw (= hay)’ – which simply is not correct (Sayers 2009: 16). A better description of the preferred environment of wild strawberries is in sunny open places in general, and specifically in dry grasslands, forest clearings, along forest paths and in forest glades.

William Sayers (2009: 17) has advocated the theory – earlier proposed by Leonard Bloomfield (1933: 433 f.) – that strawberry is ‘a name for plants growing at ground level (like straw spread as litter)’, a rather abstract and far-fetched idea. Straw spread as litter is not what readily comes to mind when looking at strawberry plants.

A widespread misunderstanding is that strawberry refers to the practice of putting straw under strawberry plants to prevent the berries from rotting. Again, this is relevant only for cultivated strawberries and not at all for wild ones, hence not of interest for the etymology of the word.

Another explanation that has been suggested before but has not reached the pages of English etymological dictionaries, is the habit of children to string wild strawberries on a straw of grass, a practice that is still well known in Scandinavia, and which has in all probability been practiced in a large part of Europe (Figure 1). The reason behind this is the consistency of the berries. If you pick wild strawberries in a bucket or another vessel, you will notice that the berries ‘melt’ together to a wet mass. Strung upon a straw, on the other hand, each berry will be kept separate. Furthermore, it is a practical way of gathering the berries as you need not bring any vessel but can use blades of grasses, which are readily available where and when the strawberries grow, whenever you come across berries.

Figure 1. The children Marianne and Christer in Sundsvall picking strawberries in the summer of 1950 (Photo: Norrlandsfoto/Sundsvalls Museum CC-BY-NC). https://digitaltmuseum.se/021015994648/barnen-marianne-och-christer-from-plockar-smultron-pa-stra [Free to use.].

The soft and wet consistency of wild strawberries is the reason for the word for Fragaria vesca in Standard Swedish: smultron, which is related to the verb smälta ‘melt’, a strong verb with the ablaut variation e – a – u: smälta, smalt, smultit in infinitive, preterit, and supine, respectively. Smultron is actually a novation emanating from east central Sweden, which has replaced the older jordbär ‘earth berries’ (Bandle 1973: 62, map 13). The same root is also present in Swedish multer ‘cloudberries’ and mylta ‘cloudberry jam’, since these berries, when ripe, also have the same tendency to ‘melt’ together in a bucket.

In a debate at the Farmer’s Club in New York in 1863, William R. Prince, one of the leading horticulturists of strawberries in the United States at the time, according to the published proceedings (Annual Report of the American Institute of the City of New York 1863: 95), stated, somewhat out of context: ‘The name of strawberry originated with children, who strung the berries upon straws and brought them into the city for sale.’

The Norwegian linguist Knud Knudsen (1878: 241) indirectly expressed his opinion on the etymology:

En „Biforestilling“, som hæfter ved et fremmedord, er ellers i det hele os uvedkommende. Strawberry f. e. er nok i en vis forstand ikke det samme som jordbær, hvorvel engelskmanden med sit ord mener samme slags bær som det, vi kalder jordbær. Men den egne opfatning af dette bær-slag som noget, bærsankerne iblant drar på strå (eng. straw) og bærer i skikkelse af et pærlebånd, hører, så vidt den er knyttet til eller indlemmet i selve navnet, i ordet, ikke os norske og vort mål til, men alene engelskmændene.

A “by-notion” that is attached to a foreign word is moreover on the whole irrelevant for us. Strawberry, e.g., probably is not in a certain sense the same as jordbær, whereas the English with their word mean the same kind of berry as the one we call jordbær. But the special apprehension of this kind of berry as something berry-pickers sometimes string on straws (Eng. straw) and carry in the form of a string of beads, does not belong, as far as it is tied to or incorporated in the name itself, in the word, to us Norwegians and our language, but to the English alone (our translation).

Carl Collin (1938: 77) agreed:

Förklaringen till denna benämning [strawberry] kan enligt min mening helt enkelt vara den, att man, såsom det ännu är brukligt i många trakter av vårt land, särskilt när det gäller barn, brukat träda upp smultron på grässtrån […] och på så sätt för dem hem.

The explanation of this denomination [English strawberry] may, in my opinion, simply be that one, as is still customary in many parts of our country [Sweden], especially for children, used to string wild strawberries on straws of grass […] and in that way brought them home (our translation).

Staffan Fridell also came to the same conclusion concerning the etymology, when he wrote in his popular etymological dictionary of Swedish Ordklok (Fridell 2021: 263): ‘Engelska strawberry syftar på att smultron brukar träs på ett strå.’ (‘English strawberry refers to the custom of stringing wild strawberries on a straw’ (our translation).

The noun straw is related to the verb strew and originally meant ‘what is strewn’, e.g. on the floor of a house or a barn. The oldest meaning of the word is described in OED Online as ‘The stems or stalks (esp. dry and separated by threshing) of certain cereals, chiefly wheat, barley, oats, and rye.’ But that kind of straw is a poor candidate for stringing strawberries. What is used instead are fresh green straws of grass (bents of grass, blades of grass), Swedish grässtrån. Thus, there has been a development in meaning from ‘stems of cereals’ to ‘stems of other plants, with stems looking like cereal stems’, notably grasses. In the words of Oxford English Dictionary: ‘Extended to denote the stalks of certain other plants’. This latter meaning of straw/strå is apparently much more frequent in Scandinavian languages in comparison to English, where the original meaning ‘stems of cereals’ dominates. This is probably one reason why Scandinavians naturally tend to see a connection between the word strawberry and the practice of stringing wild strawberries on straws of grasses, while speakers of English often do not.

Harold Bender (1934: 72) states that the ‘reference to the “straw” of other plants […] is a transferred meaning of straw and it does not appear until centuries after the strawberry was named’, thus claiming that it has no bearings on the etymology of strawberry. But the appearance in writing of the different meanings of that kind of words – which scarcely and randomly figures in written texts – cannot be used as a means of actually dating the development of the different meanings. In all likelihood, the use of the word straw for other plants than cereals is ancient, being a natural, near-at-hand extension of meaning.

Many plant-related customs are so insignificant that they are missing or provide very few references in the sources. Therefore, it can be difficult to find older records, even if the practice itself may be very ancient. Sometimes, we can use fiction, poems, and iconographic representations (artwork) as sources (Lidström & Svanberg 2019). Picking wild strawberries and stringing them up on a straw of grass is an old gathering activity, which probably occupied children who, for various reasons, such as herding, were out in the forests and fields and had to supplement their meagre food with whatever edible they could find. The kind of custom to which the stringing of strawberries on a straw belongs – which is primarily practiced by children and probably also largely transferred from children to children and to some extent from mother to children – is rarely attested in writing. It is something that is readily associated with childhood. It is also often mentioned in contemporary fictional descriptions of childhood. Thus, it is not surprising that there are only scarce and relatively late instances in written, and then often literary, sources. It is characteristic that the Swedish counterpart of Oxford English Dictionary, Svenska akademiens ordbok, in order to give a text example of the much-used phrase trä smultron på strå ‘string strawberries on a straw’ had to produce an editorial phrase, apparently not being able to quote a good example from any actual written source.

At any rate, what available sources reveal is that the habit of stringing wild strawberries on a straw has existed in a large part of Europe, especially the northern areas. It is still well known in Scandinavia, Finland, and the Baltic states, but there is also some information about the custom in earlier or modern times in parts of eastern Europe (Poland, Slovenia) as well as from the Basque country. In Britain and Germany, there are clear indications that it has been known and practiced all through the nineteenth century, but that it has declined since and eventually more or less disappeared.

Most popular, even today, is the stringing of strawberries on a straw in Scandinavia. Most people in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are still familiar with it (Høeg 1974: 365; Brøndegaaard 1979: 164; Klintberg 2012: 158). In Denmark, there is an early mentioning of the custom, in a play by the author Johan Ludvig Heiberg from 1817 called Dristig vovet halv er vundet (p. 14): ‘de rødmende Jordbær, Trukne med Kunst paa Straa’ (‘the blushing strawberries, skillfully strung upon straw’). Also, H. C. Andersen (1845) describes the custom in his short story Grantræet (‘The Fir-Tree’): ‘Bønderbørnene […] havde Jordbær trukket paa Straa’ (‘The children of the peasants […] had strawberries strung on straws’). In Sweden, the earliest record we know of is from a newspaper (Göteborgs handels och sjöfartstidning 26 January 1849), where a line in a simple poem says: ‘träder rödaste smultron på strå’ (‘strings the reddest wild strawberries on a straw’). And the Swedish poet Tekla Knös (1852: 21) wrote, also in a poem ‘Hallon, smultron […] trädda på ett vackert strå’ (’Raspberries, wild strawberries […] strung on a beautiful straw’).

In both Sweden and Norway, there are modern examples from children’s and popular culture reaching a broad audience. Astrid Lindgren’s children’s book Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn 1946 (translated into English in 1963 as The Six Bullerby Children), written in the first person describes (p. 46): ‘Vi plockade smultron och trädde upp dom på strån, och det blev tretton strån fulla. På kvällen åt vi upp dom med socker och grädde till’ (‘We picked strawberries and strung them on straws, and we filled thirteen straws. In the evening, we ate them with sugar and cream’; our translation). In 1960, the Norwegian song writer and author of children’s books Alf Prøysen wrote a song called Vise for gærne jinter (‘Song for Crazy Girls’) including the lines ‘Hele væla er bære jordbær. Finn et strå og træ dom på’ (‘The whole world is just strawberries. Find a straw to string them on.’). More recently, the celebrated Swedish pop artist Uno Svenningsson in 2013 released a song called Smultron på ett strå (‘Wild strawberries on a straw’) with the chorus beginning: ‘Och då står du där med smultron på ett strå’ (‘And then you’re standing there with wild strawberries on a straw’).

By far the earliest written evidence anywhere, as far as we know, for the stringing of strawberries on straws is from the poem Britannia’s Pastorals by William Browne (1613: 32):

The wood nymphs oftentimes would busied be,

And plucke for him the blushing strawbery.

Making of them a bracelet on a bent,

Which for a fauour to this swain they sent.

Then, there are many references to the practice both in Britain and Germany during the nineteenth century. The oldest British record during that period is from a children’s book by Mary Martha Sherwood published in 1802 The History of Susan Gray (here quoted from the 1833 edition, p. 159): ‘I remembered the wood-strawberries, strung like threads of beads upon a blade of long grass.’ In 1828, the Welsh actor and author Thomas Jefferey Llewelyn Prichard wrote a book called The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti where a line reads (p. 136): ‘How oft have I ran with my strawberry wreath’ (strawberry wreath explained in a footnote as: ‘strawberries strung or beaded on long grass’). From around that period is also the earliest mention of the habit in German that we have located (Schmidt 1800: 198):

Schmölm […] ein Grashalm, der lang und dünn gewachsen ist. Die Kinder ziehen sie aus der Scheide und reihen sie voller Erdbeeren. Daheer: eine Schmölm Erdbeeren.

Schmölm is a dialectal word for tufted hairgrass (Deschampsia cespitosa; Pritzel & Jessen 1882: 52). The same grasses are called Schmielen in an account of the custom from ‘Deutschböhmen und Niederösterreich’; Blümmel & Rott 1901: 53).

As stated above, after the nineteenth century the custom seems to have vanished in both Britain and Germany. In Germany, however, in the late twentieth century there was something of a revival for the custom because of the enormous popularity of the children’s book by Astrid Lindgren Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn, which was published in a German translation Wir Kinder aus Bullerbü in 1954. This can easily be verified through a Google search for Walderdbeeren and Grashalm, which yields numerous references to Sweden and Astrid Lindgren.

Probably from Britain, the habit apparently was also exported to northeastern United States, as this quotation from the Pennsylvanian paper Youth’s Penny Gazette 14 October 1846 shows:

We […] found a great many wild strawberries […]. We ate some, and strung others (as boys do) on long stalks of timothy-grass, like beads on a thread.

An interesting record of the custom appears in a dictionary of Old Church Slavonic (Miklosich 1862–65: 479), where a Slovene word nuza is defined as ‘halm, worauf man erdbeeren fasst’. The same word with the same definition can be found in a later German-Slovene dictionary (Pleteršnik 1894–1895 1: 720). By coincidence, the Austrian author Peter Handke in his biographic novel Repetition (1998; German title; Wiederholung, 1986) depicts a situation where he is reading that same dictionary and comes across that same word and comments (p. 107):

the dictionary […] gave me images of the world, even when, as in the case of the strawberries strung on their blade of grass, I had not actually experienced them.

Even more interesting is an account from a travel through the Basque country in 1840 by the French author Théophile Gautier (1845):

il nous tombait de temps en temps sur les genoux une branche de laurier, un petit bouquet de fleurs sauvages, un collier de fraises de montagnes, perles roses enfilées dans un brin d’herbe. Ces bouquets étaient lancés par de petits mendiants, filles et garçons, qui suivaient la voiture en courant pieds nus sur les pierres tranchantes.

We have also searched for further evidence in various other sources and found that the practice of stringing strawberries on straws is also known at least in Finland (Sabira Ståhlberg in litt.), Estonia (Köögardal 1926: 157; Loorits 1941: 52; Sõukand & Kalle 2016: 134), Latvia (Baiba Pruse in litt.), and in Poland (Łukasz Łuczaj in litt.).

This survey of the geographical extension of the custom of gathering wild strawberries by stringing them on straws shows that it has been practiced in a large part of Europe and is not limited there to specific language families. This suggests an ancient origin and it would not be unreasonable to assume that it has existed ever since the age of hunter-gatherers in Europe, i.e., before agriculture was introduced, bearing in mind the practicality and convenience of the method. It must have been natural everywhere, also in Old English, to immediately associate wild strawberries with the custom – as still is the case in at least Sweden and Norway today. Considering that, we regard this as a more convincing theory for the etymology of strawberry than the other plausible alternative: the tendency for strawberry plants to grow by runners.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).