Bear’s Garlic (Allium ursinum L.)

Young leaves, prefer­ably fresh. They should be harvested before the plants starts flowering. The bulb, being much smaller than that of garlic, is only rarely used.

Alliaceae (onion family).

Similar to garlic, but less strong and with a hint of chives.

Bear’s garlic at the start of the flowering period

Flower of bear’s garlic

Similar to garlic, bear’s garlic con­tains a large number of sulfur com­pounds: di­vinyl sulfide, dim­ethyl thio­sulfonate, methyl cystein sulf­oxide and the latter’s de­gra­da­tion products, methyl allyl thio­sulfonate and methanethiol.

Bear’s garlic at the start of the flowering period

Native to Western and Central Europe.

In the USA, ramp (Allium tri­coccum), a wild plant with more onion-like flavour, is used for similar purposes.

English ramson (Old English hramsan) is of unclear origin; cognates are found in several Germanic (e. g., Swedish ramslök and regional German Ramsen) and Slavonic languages (e. g., Serbian cremoš [цремош] and Russian cheremsha [черемша]). There are, however, a few possibly related words in other Indo–European tongues: Greek krommyon [κρόμμυον] and Sanskrit krimighna [कृमिघ्न] onion, and maybe Welsh craf garlic. A possible Proto-Indo–European root behind is KREM.

With the apparent exception of Northern Germanic, many names of bear’s garlic in European tongues translate to bear’s garlic, bear’s leek or bear’s onion. The following table gives an overview:

Flowering bear’s garlic

Bear’s garlic (wilting leaves and unripe fruits)

I do not know what the associa­tions with bears are moti­vated by; allegedly, there is common belief that bears, after having ended their winter sleep in spring, first feed on bear’s garlic.

The name bear is common to all Germanic tongues (Old English bera, Old Norse bjǫrn); in contemporary languages, we have for example German Bär, Dutch beer or Swedish björn. The name is a euphemism originally signifying just the brown one, being derived from an Proto-Indo–European root BʰER brown; an alternative, yet less plausible, explanation relates bear to Greek ther [θήρ] animal and Latin ferus wild (Proto-Indo–European ǴʰWER- beast). It appears that the Germanic peoples avoided uttering the true name of the bear, fearing that the invocation of the name might make the dangerous animal appear.

Bear’s garlic (wilting leaves and unripe fruits)

Bear’s garlic, shortly before flower

A similar taboo concept lies behind Russian medved [медведь] and its Slavonic co­gnates with the literal meaning honey-eater. Russian med [мед] honey has relatives in almost any Indo–European language. In the Germanic languages, we find almost identical words for honey-wine: English mead (Old English meodu or medu), German Met and Icelandic mjöðr, all go back to Common Germanic MEDUZ. Non-Germanic examples include Latvian medus honey, Sanskrit madhu [मधु] sweet and Old Greek methy [μέθυ] (honey)­wine, which lies behind the name of a wine-coloured semi-precious stone, amethyst. All these cor­respond to an Proto-Indo–European root MEDʰU meaning sweet; honey (see also licorice and almond for more sweet words). Inter­estingly, this root also appears in Proto-Finno–Ugric as METE, hinting at an extremely early contact between these two language families.

Bear’s garlic growing in a forest

Bear’s garlic, shortly before flower

Mead played a domi­nant rôle in an­cient Ger­manic culture. The beverage is mentioned in the very first song of the Poetic Edda, völuspá, as being drunk by the all-wise giant Mimir: dreccr miöð Mímir morgin hverian Mimir each morning his mead drinks. Ger­manic peoples of historical time were well known for their large consume of mead; Northern Ger­manic (Viking) kings had their throne typically in a large wooden mead-hall. Cf. also the multiple oc­curren­ces of mead in the Beowulf poem, and the name of Beowulf’s own hall, medu­seld mead-hall. The name Beowulf itself literally means bee-wolf and thus bear; the reference is that bears often steal honey from beehives.

Bear’s garlic in early springtime

The true Proto-Indo–European name of the bear is H₂R̥TḰOS, probably meaning destroyer; it appears in Latin ursus, Breton arzhed, Persian khers [خرس], Sanskrit riksha [ऋक्ष], and Greek arktos [ἄρκτος] bear; the latter term was also used to denote the constellation Great Bear (also known as the Great Dipper) and thus became a general term for north.

Bear’s garlic in early springtime

Flower head of bear’s garlic

Many langua­ges have a name for bear’s garlic signi­fying wild garlic: French ail sauvage, Greek agrio skordo [άγριο σκόρδο], Russian dikij chesnok [дикий чеснок], Hebrew shum habar [שום הבר] and Turkish yabanî sarımsak may serve as examples. Cf. also Chinese ye cong [野葱] wild onion. Another, less common, denomi­nation is garlic of the forest: Dutch wout­knoflook, yiddisch vald­knobl [װאַלדקנאָבל] and Spanish ajo silvestre. Quite con­fusingly, the Bulgarian name div chesun [див чесън] wild garlic does not mean bear’s garlic but chives.

See also garlic.

Plants for a Future: Plant Portrait of Allium ursinum, Wild Garlic (www.scs.leeds.ac.uk) Sorting Allium names (www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au) Pflanzen des Capitulare de Villis: Bärlauch (biozac.de) baerlauch.net (Franz & Gisela Schmidt) Wildman Steve Brill: Ramps Voluspa: The Song of the Sybil (www.geocities.com) Völuspá: The prediction of the prophetess (www.nordic-life.org) Wöluspa: Der Seherin Ausspruch (www.maerchen.net) Rezept von goccus.com: Bärlauchpesto