Chapter Harness Cask to Harvest Goose of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Harness Cask to Harvest Goose

Harness Cask A large cask or tub with a rim cover, containing a supply of salt meat for immediate use. Nautical term.

Harness Prize (University of Cambridge), founded by the Rev. William Harness for the best essay connected with Shakespearian literature. Awarded every third year .

Haro To cry out haro to anyone. To denounce his misdeeds, to follow him with hue and cry. "Ha rou" was the ancient Norman hue-and-cry, and the exclamation made by those who wanted assistance, their person or property being in danger. It is similar to our cry of "Police!" Probably our halloo is the same word.
    In the Channel Isles, Ha! ho! à l'aide, mon prince! is a protest still in vogue when one's property is endangered, or at least was so when I lived in Jersey. It is supposed to be an appeal to Rollo, king of Normandy, to come to the aid of him suffering wrongfully.

Harold the Dauntless Son of Witikind, the Dane. "He was rocked on a buckler, and fed from a blade." He became a Christian, like his father, and married Eivir, a Danish maid, who had been his page. (Sir W. Scott: Harold the Dauntless.)

Harold's Stones at Trelech (Monmouthshire). Three stones, one of which is fourteen feet above the ground, evidently no part of a circle. Probably boundary stones. (See Hare-Stone.)

Haroot and Maroot. Two angels who, in consequence of their want of compassion to man, are susceptible of human passions, and are sent upon earth to be tempted. They were at one time kings of Babel, and are still the teachers of magic and the black arts.

Haroun al Raschid Calif of the East, of the Abbasside race. (765-809.) His adventures form a part of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

Harp The arms of Ireland. According to tradition, one of the early kings of Ireland was named David, and this king took for arms the harp of Israel's sweet Psalmist. Probably the harp is altogether a blunder, arising from the triangle invented in the reign of John to distinguish his Irish coins from the English. The reason why a triangle was chosen may have been in allusion to St. Patrick's explanation of the Trinity, or more likely to signify that he was king of England, Ireland, and France. Henry VIII. was the first to assume the harp positive as the Irish device, and James I. to place it in the third quarter of the royal achievement of Great Britain.
   To harp for ever on the same string. To be for ever teasing one about the same subject. There is a Latin proverb, Eandem cantilenam recinere. I once heard a man with a clarionet play the first half of "In my cottage near a wood" for more than an hour, without cessation or change. It was in a crowded market-place, and the annoyance became at last so unbearable that he collected a rich harvest to move on.

"Still harping on my daughter." - Shakespeare: Hamlet, ii. 1.

Harpagon (A). A miser. Harpagon is the name of the miser in Molière's comedy called L'Avare.

Harpalice (4 syl.). A Thracian virago, who liberated her father Harpalicos when he was taken prisoner by the Getae.

"With such array Harpalice bestrode"
Her Thracian courser." Dryden.

Harpe (2 syl.). The cutlass with which Mercury killed Argus; and with which Perseus subsequently cut off the head of Medusa.

Harpies (2 syl.). Vultures with the head and breasts of a woman, very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating everything which they came near. Homer mentions but one harpy. Hesiod gives two, and later writers three. The names indicate that these monsters were personifications of whirlwinds and storms. Their names were Ocypeta (rapid), Celeno (blackness),