The Folk-lore of Plants

"Jump at it like a cock at a gooseberry." Then the idea of durableness is thus expressed in a Wiltshire proverb:-- "An eldern stake and a blackthorn ether [hedge], Will make a hedge to last for ever"-- an elder stake being commonly said to last in the ground longer than an iron bar of the same size.[1] A person who is always on the alert to make use of opportunities, and never allows a good thing to escape his grasp, is said to "have a ready mouth for a ripe cherry." The rich beauty, too, of the cherry, which causes it to be gathered, has had this moral application attached to it:-- "A woman and a cherry are painted for their own harm." Speaking of cherries, it may be mentioned that the awkwardness of eating them on account of their stones, has given rise to sundry proverbs, as the following:-- "Eat peas with the king, and cherries with the beggar," and:-- "Those that eat cherries with great persons shall have their eyes squirted out with the stones." A man who makes a great show without a corresponding practice is said to be like "fig-tree fuel, much smoke and little fire," and another adage says:-- "Peel a fig for your friend, and a peach for your enemy." This proverb, however, is not quite clear when applied to this country. "To peel a fig, so far as we are concerned," writes Mr. Hazlitt[2], "can have no significance, except that we should not regard it as a friendly service; but, in fact, the proverb is merely a translation from the Spanish, and in that language and country the phrase carries a very full meaning, as no one would probably like to eat a fig without being sure that the fruit had not been tampered with. The whole saying is, however, rather unintelligible. 'Peeling a peach' would be treated anywhere as a dubious attention."