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Wolf
(in music). In almost all stringed instruments (as the violin,
organ, piano, harp, etc.) there is one note that is not true,
generally in the bass string. This false note is by musicians called a
“wolf.”
The squeak made in reed instruments by
unskilful players is termed a “goose.”
“Nature hath implanted so inveterate a hatred atweene the
wolfe and the sheepe, that, being dead, yet in the operation of Nature
appeareth there a sufficient trial of their discording nature; so that
the enmity betweene them seemeth not to dye with their bodies; for if
there be put upon a harpe strings made of the intralles of a sheepe,
and amongst them one made of the intralles of a wolfe the musician
cannot reconcile them to a unity and concord of sounds, so discording
is that string of the wolfe.” —
Ferne:
Blazon of Gentrie (1586).
Here Mr. Ferne attributes the musical “wolf” to a
wolf-gut string; but the real cause is a faulty interval. Thus, the
interval between the fourth and fifth of the major scale contains nine
commas, but that between the fifth and the sixth only eight. Tuners
generally distribute the defects, but some musicians prefer to throw
the whole onus on the “wolf” keys.
Wolf
(Anglo-Saxon, wulf.)
Fenris. The wolf that scatters
venom through air and water, and will swallow Odin when time
shall be no more.
Sköll. The wolf that follows
the sun and moon, and will swallow them ultimately.
(Scandinavian mythology. The Wolf. So
Dryden calls the Presbytery in his Hind and
Panther.
Unkennelled range in thy Polonian plains,
A $$$ foe the insatiate Wolf remains.
She-wolf of France.
Isabella le Bel, wife of Edward II.
According to a tradition, she murdered the king by burning his
bowels with a hot iron, or by tearing them from his body with
her own hands.
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tearst the bowels of thy mangled mate.
Gray:
The Bard.
Between dog and wolf. In Latin, “Inter
canem et lupum ”; in French,
“Entre chien et loup. ” That
is, neither daylight nor dark, the blind man's holiday Generally
applied to the evening dusk.
Dark as a wolf's mouth. Pitch
dark.
He has seen a wolf. Said of a
person who has lost his voice. Our forefathers used to say that
if a man saw a wolf before the wolf saw him he became dumb, at
least for a time.
Vox quoque Moerin
Jam fugit ipsa; lupi Moerin videre priores.
Virgil:
Bucolica, eclogue ix.
“`Our young companion has seen a wolf,' said Lady
Hameline, `and has lost his tongue in consequence.' ”
—
Scott:
Quentin Durward, ch. xviii.
To see a wolf is also a good sign, inasmuch as thy wolf
was dedicated to Odin, the giver of victory.
He put his head into the wolf's
mouth. He exposed himself to needles danger. The
allusion is to the fable of the crane that put its head into a
wolf's mouth in order to extract a bone. The fable is usually
related of a fox instead of a wolf.
(French.)
Holding a wolf by the ears. So
Augustus said of his situation in Rome, meaning it was equally
dangerous to keep hold or to let go. Similarly, the British hold
of Ireland is like that of Augustus. The French use the same
locution: Tenir le loup par les
oreilles.
To cry Wolf! To give a false alarm.
The allusion is to the well-known fable of the shepherd lad who
used to cry “Wolf!” merely to make fun of the
neighbours, but when at last the wolf came no one would believe
him.
In Chinese history it is said that Yëu-wâng, of
the third Imperial dynasty, was attached to a courtesan named
Pao-tse, whom he tried by various expedients to make laugh. At
length he hit upon the following: He caused the tocsins to be
rung as if an enemy were at the gates, and Pao-tse laughed
immoderately to see the people pouring into the city in alarm.
The emperor, seeing the success of his trick, repeated it over
and over again; but at last an enemy really did come, and when
the alarm was given no one paid attention to it, and the emperor
was slain. (B.C. 770.) (See Amyclaean
Silence.)
To keep the wolf from the door. To
keep out hunger. We say of a ravenous person “He has a
wolf in his stomach,” an expression common to the French
and Germans. Thus manger comme un loup is
to eat voraciously, and wolfsmagen is the
German for a keen appetite.
Wolf
Duke of Gascony. One of Charlemagne's knights, and
the most treacherous of all, except Ganelon. He sold his
guest and his family. He wore browned steel armour,
damasked with silver; but his favourite weapon was the
gallows. He was never in a rage, but cruel in cold
blood.
“It was Wolf, Duke of Gascony, who was the
originator of the plan of tying wetted ropes round the
temples of his prisoners, to make their eye-balls start
from their sockets. It was he who had them sewed up in
freshly-stripped bulls' hides and exposed to the sun till
the hides in shrinking broke their bones.”
—Croquemitaine, iii.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Wolf from Infoplease:
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