Blackberry Picking

Summer is over and the CC does (occasionally) go picking wild berries (and mushrooms) and he can personally attest to the sentiment alluded at the end of the poem.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

-- Seamus Heaney

The Dark Side of Tarragon

Beckett's famous play, Waiting for Godot, has as one of its two principal characters by the name of Estragon.

This is not a real name that people actually have. It refers to "tarragon" in French.

What's not so obvious is that tarragon had an association of being "dragon-like" or "serpent-like" most likely because its anise-like flavor will overpower any dish.

Estragon is definitely serpent-like in the play and "earth-bound" as opposed to the intellectual and "air-bound", Vladimir. Beckett explicitly calls for instructions for the actors to be fat and squat versus tall and skinny respectively. He also has Estragon continually near the ground while Vladimir is always standing up.

Estragon is repeatedly willing to compromise to get his way (serpent-like?) versus the more idealistic Vladimir who will not until the end of the second act when he has a brief moment of panic.

Did Beckett intend this? Almost certainly. The name doesn't exist so what else could it be other than a form of association?

Unfortunately Beckett's (very copious) notes leave no indication about this part of his imagination so we will just have to contend ourselves with conjecture.