Related Content
- Daily Word Quiz: raconteur
- Analogy of the Day: Today’s Analogy
- Frequently Misspelled Words
- Frequently Mispronounced Words
- Easily Confused Words
- Writing & Language
A acted virago in the reign of Henry VIII. Her name has been given to several articles of unusual size. Thus, the large blue-black marble in the south cloister of Westminster Abbey, over the grave of Gervasius de Blois, is called “Long Meg of Westminster.” Fuller says the term is applied to things “of hop-pole height, wanting breadth proportionable thereunto,” and refers to a great gun in the Tower so called, taken to Westminster in troublous times.
The large gun in Edinburgh Castle is called Mons Meg, and the bomb forged for the siege of Oudenarde, now in the city of Ghent, is called Mad Meg.
In the Edinburgh Antiquarian Magazine, September, 1769, we read of “Peter Branan, aged 104, who was six feet six inches high, and was commonly called Long Meg of Westminster.” (See Meg.)
“This, and the Robrick stones in Oxford shire, are supposed to have been erected at the investiture of some Danish kings, like the Kingstoler in Denmark, and the Moresteen in Sweden.” —
Related Content
|