Chapter Luciferians to Luddites of L by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

is derived from the verb blaec-an, to bleach or whiten.
   Beldam. An ugly hag. From the French belle dame.
   Bellum [war] quia minime bellum. (Priscian.) Bellum, a beautiful thing.
   Calid (hot) radically the same as the Saxon cald, German kalt (cold).
   Cleave, to part, also signifies to stick together. (Saxon, clifan, to adhere.)
   Curtana (the instrument that shortens by cutting off the head; French court, Italian corto) is the blunt sword, emblematical of mercy, borne before our sovereigns at their coronation.
   Devoted (attached to) is the Latin devotus (cursed).
   Eumenides (the well-disposed); the Furies.
   Euonyma (good name); is poisonous.
   Hiren, a sword, a bully. (Gk. irene, peace.)
   Kalo-Johannes, son of Alexius Comnenes. Called Kalos (handsome) because he was exceedingly ugly and undersized. He was, however, an active and heroic prince, and his son Manual (contemporary with Richard Coeur de Lion) was even more heroic still.
   Lambs were ruffians formerly employed at elections to use “physical force” to deter electors from voting for the opposition.
   Leucosphere, the inner and brighter portion of the sun's corona. It is neither white nor spherical.
   Lily-white, a chimney-sweep.
   Religion, bond-service (re-ligo), is the service of which Christ has made us free.
   Speaker of House of Commons. The only member that never makes speeches.
   Solomon, George III., so called by Dr. Wolcott, because he was no Solomon.
   In their marriage service the Jews break a wine-glass; the symbol being “as this glass can never be rejoined, so may our union be never broken.” (See Misnomer.)

Lucy (St.). Patron saint for those afflicted in the eyes. It is said that a nobleman wanted to marry her for the beauty of her eyes; so she tore them out and gave them to him saying, “Now let me live to God.” The story says that her eyesight was restored; but the rejected lover accused her of “faith in Christ,” and she was martyred by a sword thrust into her neck. St. Lucy is represented in art carrying a palm branch, and bearing a platter with two eyes on it.

Lucy and Colin A ballad by Thomas Tickell, translated into Latin by Vincent Bourne. Colin forsook Lucy of Leinster for a bride “thrice as rich.” Lucy felt that she was dying, and made request that she might be taken to the church at the time of Colin's wedding. Her request was granted, and when Colin saw Lucy's corpse, “the damps of death bedewed his brow, and he died.” Both were buried in one tomb, and to their grave many a constant hind and plighted maid resort to “deck it with garlands and true-love knots.”

Lud A mythical king of Britain. General Lud. (See Luddites.)

Lud's Bulwark Ludgate prison. (See above.)

Luds Town London; so called from Lud, a mythical king of Britain. Ludgate is, by a similar tradition, said to be the gate where Lud was buried. (See London.)

“And on the gates of Lud's town set your heads.”
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, iv. 2.

Ludgate Stow says, “King Lud, repairing the city, called it after his name Lud's town; the strong gate which he built in the west part he likewise named Ludgate. In the year 1260 the gate was beautified with images of Lud and other kings. Those images, in the reign of Edward VI., had their heads smitten off .... Queen Mary did set new heads upon their old bodies again. The twenty-eighth of Queen Elizabeth the gate was newly and beautifully built, with images of Lud and others, as before.” (Survey of London.) The more probable etymon of Lud-gate is the Anglo-Saxon leode (people), similar to the Porto del populi of Rome.

“[Lud] Built that gate of which his name is hight,
By which he lies entombëd solemnly.”
Spenser: Faerie Queene, ii. x. 46.

    Ludgate was originally built by the barons, who entered London, destroyed the Jews' houses, and erected this gate with their ruins. It was used as a free prison in 1373, but soon lost that privilege. A most romantic story is told of Sir Stephen Forster, who was lord mayor in 1454. He had been a prisoner at Ludgate, and begged at the gate, where he was seen by a rich widow, who bought his liberty, took him into her service, and afterwards married him. To commemorate this strange eventful history, Sir Stephen enlarged the prison accommodation, and added a chapel. The old gate was taken down and rebuilt in 1586. The new-built gate was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, and the next gate (used