M — Magenta to Magpie (Part 3 of 3)

Mago the Carthaginian, says Aristotle, crossed the Great Desert twice without having anything to drink.

Magophonia A festival observed by the Persians to commemorate the massacre of the Magi. Smerdis usurped the throne on the death of Cambyses; but seven Persians, conspiring together, slew Smerdis and his brother; whereupon the people put all the Magi to the sword, and elected Darius, son of Hystaspes, to the throne. (Greek, magosphonos, the magi-slaughter.)

Magot (French). Money, or rather a mass of secreted money; a corruption of imago, the “image and superscription” of coined money.

“Là il vola de même, revint à Paris avec un bon magot.”- La Gazette Noire, 1784, p. 270.

Magpie A contraction of magotpie, or magata-pie. “Mag” is generally thought to be a contraction of Margaret; thus we have Robin red-breast, Tom-tit, Philip- i.e. a sparrow, etc.

“Augurs and understood relations have
(By magotpies, and choughs, and rooks) brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.”
Shakespeare: Macbeth, iii. 4.

   Magpie. Here is an old Scotch rhyme:

“One's sorrow, two's mirth,
Three's a wedding, four's a birth
Five's a christening, six a death
Seven's heaven, eight is hell,
And nine's the devil his ane sel'.”