Chapter Mahoun' to Make the Ice of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Mahoun' to Make the Ice

Mahoun' (2 syl.). Name of contempt for Mahomet, a Moslem, a Moor. In Scotland it used to mean devil.

“There's the son of the renegade- spawn of Mahoun (son of the Moorish princess).”- Vengeance of Mudarra.

Mahound (2 syl.). Mahomet. (See Macon .)

“Ofttimes by Termagant and Mahound swore.”
Spenser: Faerrie Queene, vii. 47.

Mahu The fiend-prince that urges to theft.

“Five flends have been in poor Tom at once: of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing.”- Shakespeare: King Lear, iv. 1.

Maid Marian A morris dance, or the boy in the morris dance, called Mad Morion, from the “morion” which he wore on his head. (See Morris Dance .) Maid Marian is a corruption first of the words, and then of the sex. Having got the words Maid Marian, etymologists have puzzled out a suitable character in Matilda, the daughter of Fitz-Walter, baron of Bayard and Dunmow, who eloped with Robert Fitz-Ooth, the outlaw, and lived with him in Sherwood Forest. Some refine upon this tale, and affirm that Matilda was married to the outlaw (commonly called Robin Hood) by Friar Tuck.

“A set of morrice dancers danced a maidmarian with a tabor and pipe.”- Temple.
“Next 'tis agreed
That fair Matilda henceforth change her name,
And while [she lives] in Shirewodde ...
She by maid Marian's name be only called.”
Downfall of Robert: Earl of Huntingdon.

Maid of Athens, immortalised by Byron, was Theresa Macri. Some twenty-four years after this poem was written the maid was in dire poverty, without a single vestige of beauty. She had a large family, and lived in a hovel.

Maid of Norway Margaret, daughter of Eric II. and Margaret of Norway. On the death of Alexander III. she was acknowledged Queen of Scotland, and was betrothed to Edward, son of Edward I. of England, but she died on her passage to Scotland.

Maid of Orleans Jeanne d'Arc (1412-1431).

Maid of Perth (Fair). Catherine Glover, daughter of Simon Glover, the old glover of Perth. She kisses Smith while asleep on St. Valentine's morning, and ultimately marries him. (See Smith .) (Scott: Fair Maid of Perth.)

Maid of Saragossa Augustina Zaragoza, distinguished for her heroism when Saragossa was besieged in 1808 and 1809. Byron refers to her in his Childe Harold.

Maiden A machine resembling the guillotine for beheading criminals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; brought to Scotland by the Regent Morton from Halifax, in Yorkshire, for the purpose of beheading the laird of Pennycuick. It was also called “the widow.”
   He who invented the maiden first hanselled it. Referring to Regent Morton, who introduced this sort of guillotine into Scotland, erroneously said to have been the first to suffer by it. Thomas Scott, one of the murderers of Rizzio, was beheaded by it in 1566, fifteen years before Morton's execution.

Maiden Assize (A). One in which there is no person to be brought to trial. We have also the expressions maiden tree, one never lopped; maiden fortress, one never taken; maiden speech; etc. In a maiden