“Mada a fienté à la face du soleil.”
—(Quoted in “Les Primitifs,” p. 245.)
Réclus, in the same work, gives a fragment of an Orphic song: “Glorieux Jupiter, le plus grand des Olympiens, toi qui te plais dans les crottins des brebis, qui aimes à t’enfoncer dans les fientes des chevaux et des mulets.”—(p. 246, quoting from “Fragmenta Orphei,” edited by Hermann.)
“The blessed Apostle Paul, being rapt in contemplation of divine blissfulness, compares all the chief felicities of the earth, esteeming them (to use his own words) as ‘stercora,’ most filthy dung in regard of the joys he hoped for.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 26.)
“He is truly wise that accounteth all earthly things as dung that he may win Christ.”—(Matt. xvii. 23, quoted in Thomas à Kempis, cap. iv., “Of the Doctrine of Truth.”)
“It was current among the small boys at school some thirty-five years since, that were a man to make water whilst in connection with a woman she would die.”—(Personal letter from Prof. Frank Rede Fowke, South Kensington Museum, London, England.)
The name of the city of Chicago has been traced by some philologist to the Indian word for skunk; and it is said to be “equal to bestiola fœda mingens.” The urine of this little animal was believed by some of the Indian tribes to be capable of blinding the man in whose eyes it entered; the animal itself was deified by the Aztecs under the name of Tezcatlipoca.
For the interpretation given for the word “Chicago,” see the work “Indian Names of Places near the Great Lakes,” by Captain Dwight Kelton, U. S. Army, Chicago, Illinois, 1888.