Chapter Double to Dovetail of D by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

xxviii.

   Black Douglas, introduced by Sir Walter Scott in Castle Dangerous, is James, eighth Lord Douglas, who twice took Douglas Castle from the English by stratagem. The first time he partly burnt it, and the second time he utterly razed it to the ground. The castle, says Godscroft, was nicknamed the hazardous or dangerous, because every one who attempted to keep it from the "gud schyr James" was in constant jeopardy by his wiles.

"The Good Sir James, the dreadful blacke Douglas'
That in his dayes so wise and worthie was,
Wha here and on the infidels of Spain,
Such honour, praise, and triumphs did obtain."
Gordon.

    The person generally called "Black Douglas" is William Douglas, lord of Nithsdale, who died in 1390. It was of this Douglas that Sir W. Scott said -

"The name of this indefatigable chief has become so formidable, that women used, in the northern counties, to still their froward children by threatening them with the Black Douglas." - History of Scotland, chap. xi.

Douglas Tragedy (The). A ballad in Scott's Border Minstrelsy. Lord William steals away Lady Margaret Douglas, but is pursued by her father and two brothers. Being overtaken, a fight ensues, in which the father and his two sons are sore wounded. Lord William, wounded, creeps to his mother's house, and there dies; the lady before sunrise next morning dies also.

Douse the Glim Put out the light; also knock out a man's eye. To douse is to lower in haste, as "Douse the top-sail" Glim, gleam, glimmer, are variants of the same word.

" `And so you would turn honest, Captain Goffe, agrazing, would ye,' said an old weather-beaten pirate who had but one eye; `what though he ... made my eye dowse the glim ... he is an honest man' ..." - The Pirate, chap. xxxiii.

Dousterswivel A German swindler, who obtains money under the promise of finding buried wealth by a divining rod. (Scott: Antiquary.)

Dout A contraction of do-out, as don is of do-on, doff of do-off, and dup of do-up.
   In Devonshire and other southern counties they still say Dout the candle and Dout the fire. In some counties extinguishers are called douters.

"The dram of base
Doth all the noble substance dout."
Shakespeare: Hamlet, i. 4.

Dove - i.e. the diver- bird; perhaps so called from its habit of ducking the head. So also columba (the Latin for dove) is the Greek kolumbis (a diver).

Dove (The). The dove, in Christian art, symbolises the Holy Ghost. In church windows the seven rays proceeding from the dove signify the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. It also symbolises the human soul, and as such is represented coming out of the mouth of saints at death.
   A dove with six wings is emblematic of the Church of Christ.
   The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are: (1) counsel, (2) the fear of the Lord, (3) fortitude, (4) piety, (5) understanding, (6) wisdom, and (7) knowledge.
   Doves or pigeons not eaten as food in Russia. (See Christian Traditions.)
   Doves or pigeons. The clergy of the Church of England are allegorised under this term in Dryden's Hind and Panther, part iii. 947, 998-1002.

"A sort of doves were housed too near the hall ... [i.e. the private chapel at Whitehall]

Our pampered pigeons, with malignant eyes,
Beheld these inmates [the Roman Catholic clergy].

Tho' hard their fare, at evening and at morn,
A cruse of water and an ear of corn,
Yet still they grudged that modicum."

   Soiled doves. Women of the demi-monde.

Doves' Dung In 2 Kings vi. 25, during the siege of Samaria, "there was a great famine ... and ... an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung [hariyonim