Chapter Ha-ha to Halberjects or Haubergots of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

he told Miss Magpie, under the promise of secrecy, that "the lion king had given him three hairs from the fifth leg of the amoronthologosphorus, ... a beast that lives on the other side of the river Cylinx; it has five legs, and on the fifth leg there are three hairs, and whoever has these three hairs will be young and beautiful for ever." They had effect only on the fair sex, and could be given only to the lady whom the donor married. (Sir E. B. Lytton: Pilgrims of the Rhine, xii.)
   To a hair or To the turn of a hair. To a nicety. A hairbreadth is the forty-eight part of an inch.
   To comb one's hair the wrong way. To cross or vex one by running counter to one's prejudices, opinions, or habits.
   Without turning a hair. Without indicating any sign of fatigue or distress. A horse will run a certain distance at a given rate without turning a hair.
   Against the hair. Against the grain, contrary to its nature.

"If you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions." - Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 3.

Hair-brained (See Air-Brained .)

Hair-breadth 'Scape A very narrow escape from some evil. In measurement the forty-eighth part of an inch is called a "hair-breadth."

"Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach." Shakespeare: Othello, i. 3.

Hair Eels These filiform worms belong to the species Gordius aquaticus, found in stagnant pools. Their resemblance to wriggling hairs has given rise to the not uncommon belief that a hair, if left in water for nine days, will turn into an eel.

Hair-Splitting Cavilling about very minute differences. (See Hair-Breadth .)

"Nothing is more fatal to eloquence than attention to fine hair-splitting distinctions." - Mathews: Oratory and Orators, chap. ii. p. 36.

Hair Stane (Celtic) means boundary stone; a monolith sometimes, but erroneously, termed a Druidical stone. (Scotland.)

Hair by Hair Hair by hair you will pull out the horse's tail. Plutarch says that Sertorius, in order to teach his soldiers that perseverance and wit are better than brute force, had two horses brought before them, and set two men to pull out their tails. One of the men was a burly Hercules, who tugged and tugged, but all to no purpose; the other was a sharp, weasen-faced tailor, who plucked one hair at a time, amidst roars of laughter, and soon left the tail quite bare.

Hair devoted to Proserpine Till a lock of hair is devoted to Proserpine, she refuses to release the soul from the dying body. When Dido mounted the funeral pile, she lingered in suffering till Juno sent Iris to cut off a lock of her hair. Thanatos did the same for Alcestis, when she gave her life for her husband. And in all sacrifices a forelock was first cut off from the head of the victim as an offering to the black queen.

"Hunc ego Diti
Sacrum jussa fero, teque isto corpore solvo.'
Sic ait, et dextra crinem secat ...
... atque in ventos vita recessit.
Virgil: Æneid, iv. 702-5.

Hair of a Dissembling Colour Red hair is so-called, from the notion that Judas had red hair.

"Rosalind. His very hair is of the dissembling colour [red ].
Celia. Somewhat browner than Judas's." -
Shakespeare: As You Like It, iii. 4.

Hair of the Dog that Bit You (A). Similia similibus curantur. In Scotland it is a popular belief that a few hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences. Applied to drinks, it means, if overnight you have indulged too freely, take a glass of the same wine next morning to soothe the nerves. "If this dog do you bite, soon as out of your bed, take a hair of the tail in the morning."

"Take the hair, it's well written,
Of the dog by which you're bitten;
Work off one wine by his brother,
And one labour with another ...
Cook with cook, and strife with strife:
Business with business, wife with wife."
Athenæus (ascribed to Aristophanes).

"There was a man, and he was wise,
Who fell into a bramble-bush
And scratched out both his eyes;
And