Chapter Golden Ball to Golden Town of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Golden Ball to Golden Town

Golden Ball (The). Ball Hughes, one of the dandies in the days of the Regency. He paid some fabulous prices for his dressing cases (flourished 1820-1830). Ball married a Spanish dancer.
   He shirked a duel and this probably popularised the pun Golden Ball, Leaden Ball, Hughes Ball.
   The three golden balls. (See Balls.)

Golden Bay The Bay of Kieselarke is so called because the sands shine like gold or fire. (Hans Struys, 17th cent.)

Golden Bonds Aurelian allowed the captive queen Zenobia to have a slave to hold up her golden fetters.

Golden Bowl is Broken (The). Death has supervened.

"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." - Ecclesiastes xii. 6, 7.

   "Remember thy Creator":    before the silver cord of health is loosed by sickness;
   before the golden bowl of manly strength has been broken up;
   before the pitcher or body, which contains the spirit, has been broken up;
   before the wheel of life has run its course,
   and the spirit has returned to God, who gave it.

Golden Bull An edict by the Emperor Charles IV., issued at the Diet of Nuremberg in 1356, for the purpose of fixing how the German emperors were to be elected. (See Bull.)

Golden Calf We all worship the golden calf, i.e. money. The reference is to the golden calf made by Aaron when Moses was absent on Mount Sinai. (Exod. xxxii.) According to a common local tradition, Aaron's golden calf is buried in Rook's Hill, Lavant, near Chichester.

Golden Cave Contained a cistern guarded by two giants and two centaurs; the waters of the cistern were good for quenching the fire of the cave; and when this fire was quenched the inhabitants of Scobellum would return to their native forms. (The Seven Champions, iii. 10.)

Golden Chain "Faith is the golden chain to link the penitent sinner unto God" (Jeremy Taylor). The allusion is to a passage in Homer's Iliad (i. 19-30), where Zeus says, If a golden chain were let down from heaven, and all the gods and goddesses pulled at one end, they would not be able to pull him down to earth; whereas he could lift with ease all the deities and all created things besides with his single might.

Golden Fleece Ino persuaded her husband, Athamas, that his son Phryxos was the cause of a famine which desolated the land, and the old dotard ordered him to be sacrificed to the angry gods. Phryxos being apprised of this order, made his escape over sea on a ram which had a golden fleece. When he arrived at Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and gave the fleece to King Æe'tes, who hung it on a sacred oak. It was afterwards stolen by Jason in his celebrated Argonautic expedition. (See Argo.)

"This rising Greece with indignation viewed,
And youthful Jason an attempt conceived
Lofty and bold; along Peneus' banks,
Around Olympus' brows, the Muses' haunts,
He roused the brave to re-demand the fleece."
Dyer: The Fleece, ii.

   Golden fleece of the north. The fur and peltry of Siberia is so called.
    Australia has been called "The Land of the Golden Fleece," because of the quantity of wool produced there.

Golden Fleece An order of knighthood by this title was instituted by Philip III., Duke of Burgundy, in 1429. The selection of the fleece as a badge is perhaps best explained by the fact that the manufacture of wool had long been the staple industry of the Low Countries, then a part of the Burgundian possessions.

Golden Fountain The property of a wealthy Jew of Jerusalem. "In twenty-four hours it would convert any metal into refined gold; stony flints into pure silver; and any kind of earth into excellent metal." (The Seven Champions of Christendom, ii. 4.)