The Lingonberry
by Jon Jones
The story of the Lingonberry is a truly interesting one, and still, with all its intrigue, few people outside of any Scandinavian country have ever heard of this curious fruit.
The Lingonberry is native to, and grows only in a heavily forested region that spans from the tip of Norway, across the border, and ends approximately 17 kilometers southeast of Oslo. It has not been known to survive anywhere else on earth. It is the rare nature of the Lingonberry that has surrounded it with so much mystery among the Scandinavian people, for no one knows how this magical fruit came to be.
Some say that Eric the Red had a green thumb. Others say that the Lingonberry is a gift to the Scandinavian people from the Norse gods of Viking lore. Still others just figure it is a hybrid fluke of nature. Whatever the truth may be, it is the intrigue of the Lingonberry as much as its tart but zesty taste that has endeared it to the Scandinavian people as long as they can remember. So important to them is the Lingonberry, in fact, that they have surrounded it with certain custom and ritual in much the same way that people the world over do with their own relics, saints, flags, heroes or other cultural icons and artifacts. In this case, as the ground hog is to the people of North America, so is the Lingonberry to the Scandinavian people.
Each year, at the very cusp of Spring, a local luminary marches out to the forest with his entourage, and amid much ritual, sinks his hand into the ceremonial bush, and on local televison he will eat a handful of Lingonberries. If he finds that the berry is not ripe, he indicates this by flapping his coattails to illustrate the flatulence that will be caused by eating unripe Lingonberries. In this case, there will be six more weeks of Winter. If however he finds the berries to be ripe and to his liking, he indicates this with a shout and throws his hat into the air to show all that Spring is upon us. At this signal, the people begin to sing and dance in celebration of the coming of Spring.
It was this particular celebration that was once observed by two passing young travelers named William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who saw it as an inspiration to create their now world-famous work of childrens' entertainment , the Smurfs.
The End
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I don't really know why I wrote this. There is nothing about it that is true.
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