TL;DR: As late as the beginning of the 17th century, the editor Thomas Speght claimed that it was possible for a skillful reader to scan Chaucer. But he modernized Chaucer’s spelling, making it hard for anyone after him to do the same!
It seems that in the mid-16th century, some people still knew...
In Mary Norton's Borrowers series, the Borrowers are tiny people who live secretly among humans. There are or were several families of Borrowers living in one large house, with family surnames according to where in the house they lived (Clock, Overmantel, Harpsichord, etc.) Their first names are ...
There's a short poem by Ko Un that, when translated, goes like this:
In the very middle of the road
two dogs are coupling
I take another route
(source; translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé)
Why does the narrator take a different path? Are they repulsed by the sight, don't want to interrupt, o...
Camus's novel The Stranger begins with the news of the death and the funeral of Meursault's mother. Meursault smokes cigarettes during the wake, doesn't weep before, during or after the funeral, and on the next day goes swimming, meets a young woman and goes to the cinema with her. This behaviour...
In Macbeth, when the eponymous hero is hesitating to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth urges him forward to the murder. She memorably says:
I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless ...
Birds generally are symbols of high power, e.g. the sun. Excluding mythical birds, which real species are most strongly associated with power, magic, and specifically fire in particular?
