Chapter Satyrane to Scallop-Shell of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Saxon, Drayton says, is so called from an instrument of war called by the Germans handseax. The seax was a short, crooked sword.

And of those crooked skains they used in war to bear,
Which in their thundering tongue the German’s handseax name.
They Saxons first were named.

Drayton: Polyolbion, iv. (1612).

Saxon Duke (The), mentioned by Sam Butler in his Hudibras, was John Frederick duke of Saxony, of whom Charles V. said, “Never saw I such a swine before.”

Say. They say. Quhat say they? Let them say. This motto of Mareschal College, Aberdeen, is the motto of George Keith, its founder.

Say and Mean. You speak like a Laminak, you say one thing and mean another. The Basque Laminaks (“fairies”) always say exactly the contrary to what they mean.

She said to her, “I must go from home, but your work is in the kitchen; smash the pitcher, break all the plates, beat the children, give them their breakfast by themselves, smudge their faces, and rumple well their hair.” When the Laminak returned home, she asked the girl which she preferred—a bag of charcoal or a bag of gold, a beautiful star or a donkey’s tail? The girl made answer, “A bag of charcoal and a donkey’s tail.” Whereupon the fairy gave her a bag of gold and a beautiful star.—Webster: Basque Legends, 53 (1876).

Sboga (Jean), the hero of a romance by C. Nodier (1818), the leader of a bandit, in the spirit of lord Byron’s Corsair and Lara.

Scadder (General), agent in the office of the “Eden Settlement.” His peculiarity consisted in the two distinct expressions of his profile, for “one side seemed to be listening to what the other side was doing.”—Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit (1844).

Scalds, court poets and chroniclers of the ancient Scándinavians. They resided at court, were attached to the royal suite, and attended the king in all his wars. They also acted as ambassadors between hostile tribes, and their persons were held sacred. These bards celebrated in song the gods, the kings of Norway, and national heroes. Their lays or vyses were compiled in the eleventh century by Sæmund Sigfusson, a priest and scald of Iceland; and the compilation is called the Elder or Rhythmical Edda.

Scallop-Shell (The). Every one knows that St. James’s pilgrims are distinguished by scallop-shells, but it is a blunder to suppose that other pilgrims are privileged to wear them. Three of the popes have, by their bulls, distinctly confirmed this right to the Compostella pilgrim alone: viz. pope Alexander III., pope Gregory IX., and pope Clement V.

(Now, the escallop or scallop is a shellfish, like an oyster or large cockle; but Gwillim tells us, what ignorant zoologists have omitted to mention, that the bivalve is “engendered solely of dew and air. It has no blood at all; yet no food that man eats turns so soon into life-blood as the scallop.”—Display of Heraldry, 171.)

Scallop-shells used by Pilgrims. The reason why the scallop-shell is used by pilgrims is not generally known. The legend is this: When the marble ship which bore the headless body of St. James approached Bouzas, in Portugal, it happened to be the wedding day of the chief magnate of the village; and while the bridal party were at sport, the horse of the bridegroom became unmanageable, and plunged into the sea. The ship passed over the horse and its rider, and pursued its onward course, when, to the amazement of all, the horse and its rider emerged from the water uninjured, and the cloak of the rider was thickly covered with scallop-shells. All were dumfounded, and knew not what to make of these marvels, but a voice from heaven exclaimed, “It is the will of God that all who henceforth make their vows to St. James, and go on pilgrimage, shall take with them scallop-shells; and all who do so shall be remembered