Baneberries !!

 

A while ago I was just sitting around here minding my own business and trying my damnedest to keep out of trouble .... so I grabbed Fluff's camera......after asking her permission , of course ............and went outside to snap off a picture or two of some of God's and Mother Nature's herbaceous creatures ........ then comment on them. What follows here is the pure , unadulterated fruit of my endeavours. 

Outside the front door under the spreading cedar tree I found these two subspeciesof baneberry growing almost side by side like next - door neighbours...... both red and white ( also named Doll's Eyes ). So much for my walk in the woods !! Now the word " bane " is not  a common utterance in everyday speech. I had often seen it used back in Shakespearean times or even in modern times with Churchill wondering whether Mussolini would prove to be a " bane or a boon " to Hitler's war effort. My father often referred jokingly to my mother as being "the bane of his life "!! I always thought he was alluding to an anglicized pronunciation of the Irish Gaelic word for a woman.... "bean "..... but this was not the case !

The noun "bane " is an Old English word connoting "that which causes death , which causes ruin , poisonous , etc . Since Old English , Dutch , German , Icelandic , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish are all related German languages  I asked my brilliant partner , Fluff , whether the root "bane " meant anything to her in modern - day Swedish ..... to which she answered  , "Why yes , in the word " baneman "...... assassin or slayer. " I told her she had made my day !!  Moral of the story , therefore...... eat strawberries , blueberries , raspberries and leave the baneberries to the birds as they are not toxic to our fine - feathered friends.