OED has the skinny: 1597 Gerarde Herbal III: clvi, of
Cloud-berrie. "This plant groweth naturally upon the tops of two
high Mountaines..one in Yorkshire called Ingleborough, the other in
Lancashire called Pendle..where the cloudes are lower than the tops
of the same all winter long, whereupon the people of the countrie
haue called them Cloud berries.
8 comments so far
Yum! Cloudberry jam always "sounds" so good (it's more mediocre in Swedish: "Bear-berry jam").
4 days, 20 hours ago by lemonad.
True, it's a beautiful name for the secret king of berries. Does anyone know etymology behind the English name?
4 days, 20 hours ago by teemu.
OED has the skinny: 1597 Gerarde Herbal III: clvi, of Cloud-berrie. "This plant groweth naturally upon the tops of two high Mountaines..one in Yorkshire called Ingleborough, the other in Lancashire called Pendle..where the cloudes are lower than the tops of the same all winter long, whereupon the people of the countrie haue called them Cloud berries.
4 days, 19 hours ago by murphy.
@murphy, thanks!
4 days, 18 hours ago by teemu.
Oops, cloudberry jam in Swedish is actually "Hjortron" (deer-berries?)
4 days, 18 hours ago by lemonad.
In Finnish, we have several names (lakka, hilla, suomuurain and bunch of rarer ones) for it. I can't figure out etymology for those.
4 days, 18 hours ago by teemu.
@lemonad: Yes, deer berries! (NE: ”speciellt svenskt ord, bildat till hjort med den vanliga bärnamnsändelsen -on”.)
4 days, 9 hours ago by plindberg.
@plindberg: thanks! (it turns out the word for cloudberries stems from deer in Swedish).
4 days, 9 hours ago by lemonad.