Apples and Blencathra...

Until I was looking for inspiration for today’s challenge, it hadn’t really occurred to me how many proverbs and sayings are based around apples, and the origins are very interesting....


“In Old English the word apple was used to describe any round fruit that grew on a tree. Adam and Eve's forbidden fruit, which they ate in the Garden of Eden, is often described as an apple but, in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, it is just called 'a fruit'.


The February 1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine includes the origins of the following saying:


"A Pembrokeshire proverb. Eat an apple on going to bed, And you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread."


A number of variants of the rhyme were in circulation around the turn of the 20th century. In 1913, Elizabeth Wright recorded a Devonian dialect version and also the first known mention of the version we use now, in Rustic Speech and Folk-lore:


"Ait a happle avore gwain to bed, An' you'll make the doctor beg his bread; or as the more popular version runs: An apple a day Keeps the doctor away."


Apples have a good claim to promote health. They contain Vitamin C, which aids the immune system, and phenols, which reduce cholesterol. They also reduce tooth decay by cleaning one's teeth and killing off bacteria. It has also been suggested by Cornell University researchers that the quercetin found in apples protects brain cells against neuro-degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's Disease.”


Other maxims include “the apple of my eye”, “don’t upset the apple cart”, “apple pie order” and “the apple never falls from the tree...” 


Who would have thought the humble little apple could have been the originator of all this wisdom?!


For MonoMonday:Origins – thanks to Nickimags for hosting again this week!

The colour version is an extra.