For the first fact of Christmas, I bring you a partridge in a pear tree. That’s how the song goes, but it seems that the pear tree shouldn’t actually be there. Partridges are a bird rarely seen in trees, and a pear tree wouldn’t be a great gift in the middle of winter, being completely barren of leaves or fruit.

The whole thing is most likely a language misunderstanding. The song of the Twelve Days of Christmas seems to be of French origin. A partridge, in french, is une perdrix. Une perdrix – a pear tree. An easy mistake for an anglophone.

So let’s talk partridges. Actually, the french perdrix has its origins in Greek mythology. A man named Perdix was a young innovative inventor. For example, he was walking along the beach and saw a spine of a fish. Making similar notches in a piece of iron led to the invention of the saw. (or so the myth goes) Daedalus, Perdix’s teacher, was so jealous one day he took the opportunity to shove Perdix off a tall tower. As he fell, the gods took mercy on the ingenious Perdix and turned him into a bird. But, after such a traumatic experience, a bird that was afraid of heights and lived its life on the ground. Such is the story of the first partridge. One genus of partridges is indeed named Perdix, which contains the common Grey Partridge of North America.

Partridges are smaller than pheasants, and larger than quails. Varieties are found in most all parts of the world, as they have been introduced to new regions as a tasty treat. They themselves, being ground dwellers, dine on seeds, vegetation, and insects. They have strong beaks for digging up those tasty morsels.

In prehistoric times, partridges were a popular dish for Neanderthals and Cro-Magnum humans going back at least 35,000 years.

Happy Christmas to you all, and watch for tomorrow’s article in the Twelve Facts of Christmas.

• Source: Perdix on Wikipedia

The story of “David vs. Goliath” has become a popular parable anytime the “little guy” faces off against a giant. The people do love a good David vs. Goliath triumph. However, you may not be so enthusiastic if you get to know the rest of the story.

Let’s start with the famous incident. It’s about 1000 BC. The then homeless Isrealites under King Saul are facing off against the Phillistines. The two fought all the time. In this battle, there was this one big jerk, Goliath, that kept calling out for a one-on-one fight with an Isrealite champion. The fate of battles was thought to be pre-determined, so a single match could reveal the chosen winner allowing everybody to go home early. I think we all know how that turns out. (hint: scrawny little David wins)

Fun fact: the giant Goliath is said to be four cubits and a span in the earliest accounts. That’s about 6 and a half feet tall. Not so great by today’s standards, but if you’ve ever seen suits of armour in a museum it’s obvious that humans are taller than they used to be. In later writings, Goliath came to be 6 cubits, or nearly 10 feet.

David was a favourite of King Saul at this point. He was part of his personal guard, but with David’s new popularity, the King gets jealous. Skipping the details, Sauls sends David away, David teams up with the Phillistines, attacks the Isrealites, and King Saul is killed along with all but one of his sons. Due to his popularity, David is made to be the king of the Isrealites (switching sides again), except that the rightful heir, Saul’s last son, still lives. David simply has him killed to settle the matter. Long live King David!

His ambition is to establish the kingdom of Isreal, which obviously proved succesful, but was not without a few massacres as they traveled up to where the City of David (Jerusalem) was built. The Old Testament bible clearly tells what happened to one of the the tribes along the way:

And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts. (2 Samuel 8:2 – King James)

Yes indeed. Two thirds of a nation were randomly chosen and slaughtered. The same thing happened to the Edomites and Arameans.

Now, being a “fact” blog I feel compelled to point out that there is very little archeological evidence to support this story. Though it seems true that King David did exist, and many of the events did occur, the timeline and characters may be way off. All we have is stories that may have changed with re-tellings. For example, there is a story very reminiscent of David vs. Goliath in the Greek Illiad by Homer, who may have lived a century or two before David.

Generally, it’s best to take these stories as mythology with moral lessons, which brings me back to my point of telling you all this… The morality of David vs. Goliath isn’t so simple. Perhaps you’ll want to consider this next time you relate an under-dog hero to the infamous David.

• Source: After watching a History channel show that dramatized this whole thing, I went hunting for a less made-for-TV version of the story. I started with Goliath – Wikipedia and cobbled together this story from multiple pages there.

This day, July 13th, marks the occasion of being one year since my Learn Something New Every Day blog was launched. It would be a more joyous event except for the fact that I’ve been delinquent on the “every day” part.

After a slow decline, this past month the blog has been silent. You see, unfortunately, I’ve misplaced my muse.

The Muses, from Greek, and later Roman, mythology, were gods. The original Muses were three sisters born to Gaia (“mother earth”). In later stories they were daughters of Zeus. Either way, their roles were the same; to inspire art.

In the time of ancient Greece, the inspiration went deeper. In fact, the Muses were the holders of all wisdom. At the time when all knowledge was passed around by reciting poems, the original poets didn’t claim to write them so much as to act as the voice of the Muses.

The first museums were temples built to worship the Muses. You can imagine the progression to the modern museum which remains a shrine to wisdom and art.

The word music, as well, is named for the Muses with their rhyming and rhythmic way of speaking in the ancient lyrical poetry.

In later years the Muses grew to nine, and each was assigned a specific genre to preside over. Clio was often depicted holding a scroll as she kept watch over the historians. Terpsichore played the lyre (a small harp) as she inspired dance.

Now, seeing as how we no longer believe in giant, all-powerful people who live in the sky and… er… well… since we don’t believe in the Greek mythology anymore, the specific Muse (with a capital M) has become the generic muse. It’s a title gifted to any person who inspires another’s creative work.

Until I figure out the mystery of my muse, I’m afraid this blog will remain sporadic.

• Source: Muse – Wikipedia

It wasn’t all that long ago that we learned tomatoes (along with peppers, cucumbers, and anything else with seeds) are really a fruit, however that is not true in a United States court of law. In 1883 the US Supreme Court passed a law that classified tomatoes as a vegetable.

The reason, of course, was taxes. An importer of produce refused to pay the usual tariff on vegetables arguing that tomatoes were not actually vegetables. That’s true, and the senate agreed in the botanical sense… but they made the law anyway.

That’s how the tomato can cause taxes, so how about death? Well when that law was passed, North American people would have only been eating the tomato for about 60 years prior. Before that, it was widely believed and assumed that the tomato was very poisonous.

The tomato was picked up by European explorers around 1500 from it’s native home in South America, and it was experimented with once they got it back home. So I don’t know where along the line this poison belief crept in, but in 1820 nobody would dare eat a tomato. Except one man.

The brave mythbuster was Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson, and one day he staged a public demonstration on the courthouse steps of Salem, New Jersey where he dared to eat a tomato. Obviously, the event had an anti-climactic ending and people started eating tomatoes fearlessly.

• Source: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_35.html
• Inspired by my friend Shawn who asked about the poison myth (which I had never heard of)

Today is Friday the 13th. While this pairing of number and day might cause some people concern, we’ve already established that I’m not to worried about the coincidences of calendars. But you may want to be on your guard today to ensure you don’t walk under a ladder.

There are a few theories out there for the origin and history of why it’s considered bad luck to wander underneath a ladder. The first comes from the Christian nations, where the ladder represented the holy trinity of father, son, and spirit. This is because the ladder forms a sacred triangle, whether free-standing or leaning against a wall, and to walk through this triangle is to “break” the trinity… to commit blasphemy. So, you walk under a ladder, you’re in league with the devil. Simple as that.

Another theory suggests that a ladder was associated with the gallows, a raised platform to facilitate public hangings. Naturally, anything related to that would have the bad luck stigma attached.

My boring old logical theory suggests that when you walk under a ladder, especially with somebody working above, you would be significantly increasing the odds of having something fall on you. In the same sense, it’s “bad luck” to stand at the train station on the bit of concrete that’s spattered with pigeon poop.

Now, if you do find yourself accidentally stumbling through a ladder/trinity today, don’t panic. There are things you can do to put the universe right again. Pick any one of these bad-luck-reversing tricks:

1. Spit. You can either spit three times through the rungs of the ladder, or alternatively spit on your shoe. But don’t dare look at your shoe until it has dried. (how are you supposed to know you hit your shoe in the first place? And what if you’re wearing sandals?)

2. Put it in reverse and back your way through the ladder again. Clearly this will undo what just happened.

3. Cross your fingers until you find a dog.

4. The bonus LSNED exclusive solution: stop believing in luck and keep on walking.

• Source: http://www.timelessmyths.co.uk/walking-under-a-ladder.html