Thursday, May 18, 2006

YAFE (Yet Another False Etymology): stoned.

From Raymond Lully's Fasciculus Aureus (translation mine):
...in addition to these virtues against poisons including those nine flying venoms, the toad's stone, known to the learned as the crapodine and vulgarly as the paddockstane, has also this property. Inscribed with the characters EZERA EZERA ERAVERAGAN GUGVRALTERANI and wound about the right arm with the skin of a lion it protects the bearer against wounds in battle and moreover provides lightness of thought. Eracles possessed such a stone among the twelve upon his breastplate, and thus went into battle joyously, so much so that his companions called him mad.
(Side note: Hubert de Burgh was indicted in 1232 for stealing such a toadstone for Llewellyn of Wales.)

The "battle madness" a toadstone might grant achieved such renown that men who went baresark were called "be-stoned", both for their ravings and their apparent invulnerability. By 1500 the word was used for violent drunks; by 1722 we find Daniel Defoe using it in Moll Flanders in its modern sense.

eighty-six
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