SUPERSTITIONS 
 
 
   I have heard my gronny say, hoode os leef o 
 seen two owd harries as two pynots [magpies].- 
 Tim Bobbin, Lancashire Dialect, 31 (1775). 
   When the magpie chatters, it denotes 
 that you will see strangers. 
   MKs.. A person weighs more fasting 
 than after a good meal. 
   The Jews maintained that man has three 
 natures-body, soul, and spirit. Diog~n~s 
 Laertius calls the three natures body, 
 phr~n, and thumos; and the Romans 
 called them manes, antma, and umbra. 
   There is a nation of pygmies. 
   The Patagonians are of gigantic sta- 
 ture. 
   There are men with tails, as the Ghi- 
lanes, a race of men "beyond the Sen- 
naar;" the Niam-niams, of Africa, the 
Narea tribes, certain others south of Her- 
rar, in Abyssinia, and the natives in the 
south of Formosa. 
   MARTIN. It is unlucky to kill a martin. 
   MOLE.   Moles are blind.    Hence the 
common expression, "Blind as a mole." 
Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may 
    not 
Hear a footfall. 
Shakespeare, The Tempest, act. iv. se. 1 (1609). 
  MooN-cALF, the offspring of a woman, 
engendered solely by the power of the 
moon.-Pliny, Natural History, x. 64. 
  MOUSE. To eat food which a mouse has 
nibbled, will give a sore throat. 
  It is a bad omen if a mouse gnaws the 
clothes which a person is wearing.-Bur- 
ton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 214 (1621). 
  A fried mouse is a specific for small- 
pox. 
  OSTRICH. An ostrich can digest iron. 
  Stephen. I could eat the very hilts for anger. 
  Knuowell. A sign of your good digestion; you 
have an ostrich stomach.-B. Jonson, Every Man 
in His Humor, iii. 1 (1598). 
  I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and 
swallow my sword.-Shakespeare, 2 Henry V!. 
act iv. sc. 10 (1591). 
 
 
   OwL. If owls screech with a hoarse and 
 dismal voice, it bodes impending calamity. 
 (See OWL.) 
     The oulA that of deth the bodA bringeth. 
            Chaucer, Assembly of Foules (1358). 
   Pamuc. A pelican feeds its young 
 brood with its blood. 
   The pelican turneth her beak against her 
 brest, and therewith piereeth it till the blood 
 gush, wherewith she nourisheth her young.- 
 Eugenius Philalethes, Brief Natural History, 93. 
     Then sayd the Pellycane, 
   "When my byrdts be slayne, 
   With my blonde I them reuyue [revivej] 
     Scrypture doth record, 
     The same dyd our Lord, 
   And rose from dath to lyue [life]. 
       Skelton, Armoury of Byrdts (died 1529). 
    And, like the kind, life rendering pelican, 
    Repast them with my blood. 
       Shakespeare, Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5 (1596). 
   PH(ENIX. There is but one phoenix in 
 the world, which, after many hundred 
 years, burns itself, and from its ashes an- 
 other phcenix rises up. 
 Now I will believe, . . . that in Arabia 
 There is one tree, the phcenix' throne; one phce. 
    nix 
At this hour reigning there. 
  Shakespeare, The Tempest, act iii. sc. 3 (1609). 
  The phoenix is said to have fifty orifices 
in its bill, continued to its tail. After liv- 
ing its 1000 or 500 years, it builds itself a 
funeral pile, sings a melodious elegy, flaps 
its wings to fan the fire, and is burnt to 
ashes. 
    The enchanted pile of that lonely bird 
    Who Sings at the last his own death-lay. 
    And in-music and perfume dies away. 
  T. Moore, Lalla Rookh (" Paradise and the 
Peri," 1817). 
  The phoenix has appeared five times in 
Egypt: (1) in the reign of Sesostris; (2) 
in the reign of Am~sis; (3) in the reign of 
Ptolemy Philadelphos; (4) a little prior 
to the death of Tiberius; and (5) during 
 
 
SUPERSTITIONS 
 
 
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