Storyology: Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore

According to Webster, it is 'a fabulous or imaginary statement or narrative conveying an important truth, generally of a moral or religious nature: an allegory, religious or his...

It is sufficiently remarkable that the rod, besides being an emblem of authority, is also an instrument of the supernatural. An indispensable instrument, one may say; for was ev...

There is an old superstition, current, probably, in most parts of the country, that the breaking of a mirror will be followed by bad luck--usually a death in the family. This is...

Certainly since, and probably long before, Job 'beheld the moon walking in brightness,' all the peoples of the earth have surrounded that luminary with legends, with traditions,...

So much legendary lore and so many strange fables have had their origin in the mandrake, or the 'Devil's Candle,' as the Arabians call it, that it is worth while to endeavour to...

One of the oldest superstitions connected with the sea is undoubtedly that which associated peril with the malefic influence of some individual on shipboard. We find it in the c...

Who was Mother Carey the appearance of whose 'chickens' is supposed by the mariner to foretell a coming storm? This question is often asked, but seldom answered, and so a little...

This expression of what may be called nautical slang has now become almost classic. At all events, everybody knows it; and most people may be presumed to know that to 'go to Dav...

That the lily should symbolize purity seems appropriate enough, but why should parsley in olden times have been associated with death? It is recorded that a few bundles of parsl...

'Doth not Rosemary and Romeo both begin with a letter?' asks Juliet's nurse. Yes, but what did she mean by the query, and by the further remark that 'Juliet hath the prettiest s...

Why did Ophelia say: 'There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb grace o' Sundays, for you must wear your rue with a difference'? For the same reason that...

'"Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion. Were I in gallant Stanley's place, When Marmion urged him to the chase, A word you then would all es...

The planting of a tuber by Clusius, in 1588, in the Botanical Gardens at Vienna, is often referred to as the introduction of the potato into Europe. As a matter of fact, however...

Where is it? 'At Charing Cross, of course,' says the self-assured Londoner; and in one sense he may not be far wrong. 'At Boston,' says the cultured inhabitant of the 'hub' of t...