[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, March 7

[Cait O'Hara]

lant

Stale urine.  It was preserved in a tank, and having been mixed with lime, used for dressing wheat before it was sown to prevent birds from picking up the seeds.
-- Sidney Addy's Glossary of Sheffield Words, 1888

Formerly much used by Lancashire cottagers for scouring or cleaning blankets and other woolen cloths; also for sundry medicinal purposes.  In every yard or garden would have been found a receptacle for storing it.
-- Nodal and Milner's Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, 1882

To Leint ale, to put urine into it to make it strong.
-- John Ray's North Country Words, 1693

Hopper-Cake Night
An English evening ceremony once performed to mark the end of springtime seed planting, it featured fruit buns and spiced ale.  Hopper is a provincial term for a basket carried by field workers, from which seeds were hand-broadcast.  Today is also the feast of St. Felicity, who has long been invoked to increase crop fertility.




---
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons;
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
-- Acacia



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