[788] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 919.
[789] A three-man beetle is a heavy implement, with three handles, used in driving piles, etc., which required three men to lift it.
[790] A correspondent of “Notes and Queries,” 2d series, vol. vii. p. 277, suggests as a derivation the German schnapps, spirit, and drache, dragon, and that it is equivalent to spirit-fire.
[791] Cf. “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 3): “But to make an end of the ship,—to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.”
[792] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 131.
[793] “Sports and Pastimes,” pp. 168, 169.
[794] See “British Popular Customs,” 1876, pp. 78, 83, 87, 401.
[795] “Shakespeare and his Times,” vol. ii. p. 170; see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” pp. 118, 435.
[796] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 199.
[797] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 420.