Chapter Well of Samaria to Wharton of W by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Well of Samaria to Wharton

Well of Samaria now called Nablûs, is seventy-five feet deep.

Well of Wisdom This was the well under the protection of the god Mimir (q.v.). Odin, by drinking thereof, became the wisest of all beings. (Scandinavian mythology.)

Wells (Somersetshire). So called from St. Andrew's Well.

Weller (Sam). Pickwick's factotum. His wit, fidelity, archness, and wide-awakedness are inimitable. (Dickens Pickwick Papers.)
   Tony Weller. Father of Sam. Type of the old stage-coachman; portly in size, and dressed in a broad-brimmed hat, great-coat of many capes, and topboots. His stage-coach was his castle, and elsewhere he was as green as a sailor on terra firma. (Dickens: Pickwick Papers.)

Wellington Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, called “The Iron Duke,” from his iron constitution and iron will. (1769-1852.)
   Wellington's horse, Copenhagen. (Died at the age of twenty-seven.) (See Horse.)
   Le Wellington des Joucurs. Lord Rivers was so called in Paris.

“Le Wellington des Joueurs lost 23,000 at a sitting, beginning at twelve at night, and ending at seven the following morning.”- Edinburgh Review, July, 1844.

Welsh Ambassador ( The). The cuckoo. Logan, in his poem To the Cuckoo calls it the “messenger of Spring”; but the Welsh ambassador means that the bird announces the migration of Welsh labourers into England for summer employment.

“Why, thou rogue of universality, do I not know thee? This sound is like the cuckoo, the Welsh ambassador.”- Dampet: A Trick to Catch the Old One. iv. 5.

Welsh Main Same as a “battle royal.” (See Battle .)

Welsh Mortgage (A). A pledge of land in which no day is fixed for redemption.

Welsh Rabbit Cheese melted and spread over buttered toast. The word rabbit is a corruption of rare- bit.

“The Welshman he loved toasted cheese,
Which made his mouth like a mouse-trap.”
When Good King Arthur Ruled the Land.

Welsher One who lays a bet, but absconds if he loses. It means a Welshman, and is based upon the nursery rhyme, “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief.”

Wench (A) is the Anglo-Saxon word wencle, a child. It is now chiefly used derogatorily, and the word wenching is quite offensive. In the Midland counties, when a peasant addresses his wife as “my wench,” he expresses endearment.
   Wench, like girl, was at one time applied to either sex, Chaucer has “yonge- girls” for youngsters of both sexes. We find the phrase “knave-girl” used for boys; and Isaac, in the Ormulum, is called a wench or wenchel. Similarly, “maid” is applied to both sexes, hence the compound moeden- foemne, a female child or maiden.

Werner alias Kruitzner, alias Count Siegendorf. Being driven from the dominion of his father, he wandered about as a beggar for twelve years. Count Stralenheim, being the next heir, hunted him from place to place. At length Stralenheim, travelling through Silesia, was rescued from the Oder by Ulric, and lodged in an old palace where Werner had been lodging for some few days. Werner robbed Stralenheim of a rouleau of gold, but scarcely had he done so when he recognised in Ulric his lost son, and child him for saving the count. Ulric murdered Stralenheim, and provided for his father's escape to Siegendrof castle, near Prague. Werner recovered his dominion, but found that his son was a murderer, and imagination is left to fill up the future fate of both father and son. (Byron Werner.)

Werther The sentimental hero of Goethe's romance called The Sorrows of Werther.

Werwolf (French, loup-garou). A bogie who roams about devouring infants, sometimes under the form of a man, sometimes as a wolf followed by dogs, sometimes as a white dog, sometimes as a black goat, and occasionally invisible. Its skin is bullet-proof, unless the bullet has been blessed in a chapel dedicated to St. Hubert. This superstition was once common to almost all Europe, and still lingers in