A bonfire was originally a funeral pyre.
A constable chases a heifer and gets caught in a trap.
Two famous women fight a duel with fingernails.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those amazing statements mean that this is Lindsay McCarrie back again
with another array of unusual news items and odd facts to make you say,
can you imagine that? We'll all be back in just one minute and a half, so wait around, won't you?
And after one and a half minutes, we're back with our first item, and here it is.
In the month of November 1915, Constable Scaffington Kelso of Eddington, Maine,
started out on a very routine matter of official business, with a writ of
reploven in his pocket to take over a chattel which was involved in a civil lawsuit.
The chattel specifically was a heifer, and as he approached the animal, she looked up and...
Come on, come on, don't run away now. Nobody's gonna hurt you. Come on,
let me put this rope around your neck. Stand still, darn you. Nobody's gonna hurt you now.
Come here. With a coiness that would have done credit to the shyest of feminine wiles,
the heifer edged away from Constable Kelso. Then as he reached out to put the rope around
the heifer's neck... Come on now. That's it, girl. That's it. Come back here, darn it.
Come back here. Come on now. Come back here, dear. Hear me?
Well, that started it. According to the Harris Constable, the heifer ran four miles
through a swamp, then decided to circuit a mountain with the constable
grimly hanging onto the chase until... Now, almost... Gotcha. Oh, here. Get away.
Get away. Go on now. Get away, doggy. Get away. Go on. A vicious dog held Constable
Kelso at bay for two hours while the heifer placidly recovered her breath,
protected by the snarling canine. Then the dog wearied of the game and went away,
leaving Kelso to resume the chase. On and on went the constable and the heifer,
then while racing across a field... I'll get you. Yeah.
Constable Kelso stepped into a mink trap. He finally captured the ambling
heifer, though, and then he appeared before Judge Blanchard to collect extra
costs because of the extra trouble he had while serving the writ of replavum.
Said the constable to the judge... And, your honor, I didn't only have all that
trouble, but I lost my jackknife. A good one. I tore my clothes almost to rags.
I ruined my shoes and ran myself almost to death. And that ain't the worst of it.
At the grains meeting, one of the young ladies read a funny poem about the chase
I had. She wrote it. Might have been funny to her and the others, but it wasn't to me.
P.S. Constable Scuffington Kelso was awarded the extra costs. Can you imagine
that? Well, here's an interesting little bit of phrase origin. Have you ever been
accused of passing the buck? If you have, I'm sure you'll be interested in knowing
the origin of the phrase. It comes from draw poker, as played in the days when
stakes were high. During those card games, an object was passed around the table to
mark the position of the dealer. That object was called a buck. B-U-C-K. Now, the
dealer usually anted for the other players. That is, the dealer placed in the
center of the table the number of chips, gold pieces, or coins to the number of
persons playing in the game for their admission fee. Thus, the dealer paid for
everyone. Regretfully, we must imagine that some dealers to whom the buck was
passed wanted to shirk the responsibility of paying up for all and
passed the buck to the next man, thus implying that there was where the deal
belonged. And so, from the game of poker, we have garnered our phrase, passing the
buck, which means the passing of responsibility to another's shoulders.
If this were television, you could see a band of students and merrymakers
disposing themselves around a huge bonfire. They're all having a great time,
enjoying themselves immensely, but as jolly as that bonfire is, it has an
exceedingly gruesome history. It wasn't always a bonfire as we know it. Let's
imagine ourselves in the Middle Ages. A plague is sweeping through Europe. People
die faster than they can be buried. That fact is brought to the attention of the
authorities, one of whom says, what are we going to do? We can't leave the dead
lying about the streets and the gutters. They'll spread this pestilence to the
very walls of the Palace of the King. One of the doctors suggests that we burn
the bodies. Burn? Well, that would get rid of them, but how about the Holy Mass?
The people won't give up their dead if they're told to give them up without
Christian burial. Let a priest administer the last sacrament to those on the
fires. That will do it.
Those grisly fires were soon called bone fires. The reason is obvious, but later
the bone fires were used for something different. The scene is a dungeon. The
Spanish Inquisition holds trial. Listen. Raymond, the Casales, you have been tried
and convicted of heresy. Therefore, it is the judgment of this most holy court
that you are to be burnt at the stake in punishment for your most grievous crime.
No, no. It was no crime. My political enemies did this to me. I've committed no
crime. My enemies sent me to the bone fire. They sent me.
And there is the origin of bonfire. The passage of time has taken out the E,
shortened the O, and thus the word has lost its first grisly gruesome
connotation until nowadays we think of a bonfire as a place around which gathered
happy, joyous merrymakers. Can you imagine that? Here's an amusing little
story I dug up. It's true and I think it'll give you a chuckle. A certain lady
was staying at a German hotel. In the room next hers was a pianist who played
and played and played. When he got tired he played a little more until he was
rested enough to go on playing some more. The lady finally wrote him a bitter note
and dispatched it by her maid. The note asked, No, commanded that the noise and
racket stop. A few moments later the lady's maid returned with another note,
this time from the pianist to the lady. It read, Madam, I'm sorry to have annoyed
you. Your request is granted. But it wasn't the contents of the note. It
wasn't because hers had been so high and mighty and his so humble that sent the
hot blood to her cheeks in an agony of embarrassment. No, it was the signature at
the bottom of the pianist's note, Anton Rubenstein. We wonder what the lady
thought when she realized that she had called the music of one of the world's
greatest pianists, noise and racket. Speaking of pianists, do you recognize
this?
Yes, it's Liebestraum, Dream of Love, composed by Franz Liszt. And speaking of
Franz Liszt, I've dug up a very interesting story about the famous maestro
who charmed all Europe with his artistry at the piano. We're going to tell you the
story, then we're going to play detective with his Liebestraum. First, the story.
Franz Liszt, with his finely chiseled profile, his shock of hair that fell to
his shoulders like a lion's mane, was a natural target for adoring women who
fell under the spell of his playing. Among these were the gifted and
fashionable Countess of Agu and the literary genius, Madame George Sand.
Madame Sand and Madame d'Agou were great friends, perhaps drawn together by their
mutual admiration of Liszt. All went well until Liszt toured Switzerland and
Madame Sand toured Switzerland too. Madame d'Agou stormed, but there was
nothing to do but wait until the two wanderers returned. When they did...
Madame Sand is in? Don't lie to me now, she's in, isn't she? She returned this
morning. Very well, I'll see her. But Madame d'Agou, Madame Sand is very busy.
She's writing. Oh, is that so? Well, she won't be for long. In the library, I presume?
But Madame d'Agou, I beg of you, please don't go in until I've announced it.
But I have to say I'll announce myself.
Ah! Well, well, well, Countess, this is a surprise.
Is it? You! You! And you, Franz!
My dear Countess, you are all out of breath.
I have enough breath for what I'm going to say. You two betraying me like this. I...
I think I had better wait in the other room.
Oh, no, you'll wait right here. Madame Sand, I thought you were my friend.
You have no right to burst into my house like this. Get out.
I will not. I command you to leave my house.
Ladies, ladies, please. No, quiet, Franz. Madame Sand, I challenge you to a duel.
With bonnet feathers, I suppose. Now I know I'm going somewhere else.
Fight it out, ladies. I can't listen to any...
Now, again I say I challenge you to a duel. You fool.
You're the fool to think you could pull the wool over my eyes.
All right. All right, I'll accept your challenge.
And I have the privilege of choosing the weapon. And I choose fingernails.
Good enough for me. Defend yourself, Madame Sand.
You defend yourself. Here I come.
Oh, you! Ah! I hate you!
Oh! Oh!
That is probably the only duel ever fought by two women over a man with fingernails.
Can you imagine that? And now, as I said a few moments ago,
we're going to play detective with Franz Liszt's Liebestraum.
I'll have the orchestra play a few bars of it, and you try to think of a popular tune
of some years back that is almost identical in harmony and melodic pattern.
Listen carefully now.
Did you catch it? If you did, good for you.
If you didn't, you won't have to tear your hair in exasperation,
because here is the popular tune. It's crooning.
We're cooling, just cooling, the nighttime away, planning and dreaming day after day,
in our own little love nest, crooning lullaby.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Now it's time to turn you back to your own station announcer,
and until we meet again, this is Lindsay McHarry saying goodbye now.
Dear friends, good night.