Chapter Cheeseparing Economy to Chevy Chase of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cuckoo The cherry tree is strangely mixed up with the cuckoo in many cuckoo stories, because of the tradition that the cuckoo must eat three good meals of cherries before he is allowed to cease singing.

“Cuckoo, cuckoo, cherry-tree,
Good bird, prithee, tell to me
How many years I am to see.”

   The answer is made by the cuckoo repeating its cry the prophetic number of times.

Cherubims The 11th Hussars are so called, by a bad pun, because their trousers are of a cherry colour.

Chery and Fair-Star Chery was the son of a king's brother and Brunetta; Fair-star was the daughter of the king and Blondina, the two fathers being brothers, and the two mothers sisters. They were cast on the sea adrift, but were found and brought up by a corsair and his wife. Ultimately they are told of their birth by a green bird, and marry each other. This tale is imitated from The Sisters who Envied their Younger Sister, in Arabian Nights.
   N.B.- The name is from the French cher (dear), and is about equal to “deary” or “dear one.” It is quite wrong to spell it with a double r. (Comtesse d'Aulnoy: Fairy Tales.)

Cheshire is the Latin castra'-shire, called by the Romans Devana castra (the camp town of Deva, or Deemouth).

Chess Called by the Hindus cheturanga (the four angas)- i.e. the four members of the army- viz. elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers; called by the ancient Persians chetrang. The Arabs, who have neither c nor g, called it shetranj, which modern Persians corrupted into sacchi, whence the Italian scacchi, German schach, French echec, our chess. (See page 242, Checkmate )

Chesterfield lauded by Thomson in his Winter is the fourth earl, author of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son (1694-1773).
   Chesterfield House (London) was built by Isaac Ware for Philip, fourth earl of Chesterfield. (See above.)

Chestnut A stale joke. In The Broken Sword, an old melodrama by William Dillon, Captain Xavier is for ever telling the same jokes with variations. He was telling about one of his exploits connected with a cork-tree, when Pablo corrects him, “A chestnut-tree you mean, captain.” “Bah! (replied the captain) I say a cork-tree.” “A chestnut-tree,” insists Pablo. “I must know better than you (said the captain); it was a cork-tree, I say.” “A chestnut (persisted Pablo). I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a chestnut.”

“Is not this an illustration of the enduring vitality of the `chestnut'? [joke].”- Notes and Queries.

Chestnut Sunday Rogation Sunday, or the Sunday before Ascension Day.

Cheval (French, á cheval ). Troops are arranged á cheval when they command two roads, as Wellington's army at Waterloo, which, being at the apex of two roads, commanded that between Charleroi and Brussels, as well as that to Mons.

“The Western Powers will assuredly never permit Russia to place herself again á cheval between the Ottoman empire and Persia.”-The Times.

Cheval de Bataille (His). His strong argument. (See Notes and Queries, May 22nd, 1886, p. 410.)

Chevalier d'Industrie A man who lives by his wits and calls himself a gentleman.

“Denicheur de fauvettes, chevalier de l'ordre de l'industrie, qui va chercher quelque bon nid, quelque femme qui lui fasse sa fortune.”- Gongam, ou l'Homme Prodigieux (1713).

Chevalier du Brouillard (Le). The French Jack Sheppard. A drama.

Chevaux de Frise (French). Horses of Friesland. A beam filled with spikes to keep off horses, so called from its use in the siege of Groningen, Friesland, in 1594. A somewhat similar engine had been used before, but was not called by the same name. In German it is “a Spanish horseman” (ein Spanischer Reiter).