Quote:
Originally Posted by Victoria
[...] Your question made me curious, so I checked Professor Google. And apparently there was a widely held belief regarding Ostriches and iron; however, I’m not sure how they link to Durdles: https://mad.hypotheses.org/131 |
Thank you. Almost more than a person wants to know. Those poor birds. I wonder that the belief was so widely known then that it was thought appropriate to put in a publication like this - they didn't have Google to help them out.
I should have tried Google. I was checking an encyclopaedia, which did not mention it. I had already had to look up "Superior Family Souchong" (one of the finer varieties of black tea) and also "cock-shy".
Cock-shy is applied to cock-throwing - the sport of throwing sticks at a cock tied to a post - and similar games with cocks. The word is also used for the object at which a shy is made (hence the use in this novel).
Apparently cock-throwing had waned more than a century before this novel (became thought of as barbarous), but even so, the realisation that it had been a sport gives a slightly different perspective to Deputy throwing rocks at Durdles.