It was once the custom in Worcestershire, England, to give a bough of mistletoe to the cow that bore the first calf after New Year's. You didn't have to kiss her though.
"Aggravate" used to mean "to make heavy."
It's a fact that no asps lived in Cleopatra's Egypt, yet the story goes that one bit her. A translation error is likely the culprit.
Horseshoes haven't always been chunks of metal, nailed to the beasts' feet. In Japan, once upon a time, horses wore straw sandals.
Makers of medieval calendars marked two days of each month as evil days, during which nothing good was supposed to happen. They called them the "Dies Mali." That label evolved into the English word, "dismal."
Do you regard the renowned painter and sculptor, Michaelangelo, as one of the greatest poets of all time? His contemporaries did.
In Iran, shaking your head from side to side means, "yes."
Bakers in early England were fined for short-weighting bread loaves, so they tossed in an extra loaf for each dozen to legalize the average loaf weight. Hence the term, "baker's dozen."
Under colonial law, no Pilgrim could wear that Pilgrim's hat - the one with a wide brim and high crown - unless he owned property worth at least 200 pounds.
If the chair on which the bishop sat had not been called
a "cathedra," the building in which the chair was kept would not have been called a "cathedral." If the saint's cape had not been called a "chapele," the building in which it was kept would not have been called a "chapel." Nor would the building's guard, the keeper of the cloak, have been called a "chaplain."
Tombstones in ancient Sparta bore the names of warriors killed in battle and women who died in childbirth. No one else merited a tombstone inscription.
More naked females than naked males have been portrayed in works of art throughout history, except in one place: Ancient Greece.
It's a pity that the Incas of Peru didn't have movies. They had popcorn.
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