Whiskey the Goat
Month: November 2019
Library & Priory Center’s Mulberry tree
The well-renowned author of “Paradise Lost,” John Milton, was said to have planted a mulberry tree at Cambridge and at Stowmarket, and these trees thrive to this day. Shakespeare planted a tree at Stratford-on-Avon, which supposedly came from the mulberry garden of James I. Though this tree was chopped down, a few cuttings of it were transplanted at various spots around England, and the wood from this tree was fashioned into countless mementos of the poet and playwright. These mulberry trees are now symbolic of those famous British writers.
In Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, These two young lovers were forbidden to wed, so they arranged to meet secretly under a mulberry tree. They both perished under the tree, and their blood is said to have stained the white berries dark red. To this day, the red berries of the mulberry tree carry the symbolism of star-crossed lovers and of the final union of death.
The rhyme was first recorded by James Orchard Halliwell as an English children’s game in the mid-19th century. He noted that there was a similar game with the lyrics ‘Here we go round the bramble bush’. The bramble bush may be an earlier version, possibly changed because of the difficulty of the alliteration, since mulberries do not grow on bushes.
Past Times of St.Neots 