Pigott Diamond (The), brought from India by Lord Pigott. It weighs 82-1/4 carats. In 1818 it came into the hands of Messrs. Rundell and Bridge.
Pigrogrom´itus, a name alluded to by Sir Andrew Ague-cheek.
In sooth thou wast in very gracious fooling last night when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapian passing the equinoctial of Queubus. ’Twas very good, i’ faith.—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 3 (1614).
Pigwig´gen, a fairy knight, whose amours with Queen Mab, and furious combat with Oberon, form the subject of Drayton’s Nymphidia (1593).
Pike (Gideon), valet to old Major Bellenden.—Sir W. Scott, Old Mortality (time, Charles II.).
Pila´tus (Mount), in Switzerland. The legend is that Pontius Pilate, being banished to Gaul by the Emperor Tiberius, wandered to this mount, and flung himself into a black lake at the summit of the hill, being unable to endure the torture of conscience for having given up the Lord to crucifixion.
Pilgrim Fathers. They were 102 puritans (English, Scotch, and Dutch), who went, in December, 1620, in a ship called the Mayflower, to North America, and colonized Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. These states they called “New England.” New Plymouth (near Boston) was the second colony planted by the English in the New World.
Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment....
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.
Longfellow, Courtship of Miles Standish, iv. (1858).
Pilgrim—Palmer. Pilgrims had dwellings, palmers had none. Pilgrims went at their own charge, palmers professed willing poverty, and lived on charity. Pilgrims might return to a secular life, palmers could not. Pilgrims might hold titles and follow trades, palmers were wholly “religious” men.
Pilgrim to Compostella. Some pilgrims on their way to Compostella, stopped at a hospice in La Calzāda. The daughter of the innkeeper solicited a young Frenchman to spend the night with her, but he refused; so she put in his wallet a silver cup, and when he was on the road, she accused him to the alcaydê of theft. As the property was found in his possession, the alcaydê ordered him to be hung. His parents went on their way to Compostella, and returned after eight days, but what was their amazement to find their son alive on the gibbet, and uninjured. They went instantly to tell the alcaydê; but the magistrate replied, “Woman, you are mad! I would just as soon believe these pullets, which I am about to eat, are alive, as that a man who has been gibbeted eight days is not dead.” No sooner had he spoken than the two pullets actually rose up alive. The alcaydê was frightened out of his wits, and was about to rush out of doors, when the heads and feathers of the birds came scampering in to complete the resuscitation. The cock and hen were taken in grand procession to St. James’s Church of Compostella, where they lived seven years, and the hen hatched two eggs, a cock and a hen, which lived just seven years, and did the same. This has continued to this day, and pilgrims receive feathers from these birds as holy relics; but no matter how many feathers are given away, the plumage of the sacred fowls is never deficient.