Little discoveries about little obscurities on books

[Dilbertian]

In Ballet Shoes the girls' tutors call tea-break 'Beaver time'. I've just discovered that this was probably because the idea of tea as a light snack between meals was invented at Belvoir Castle, and Belvoir is pronounced Beaver.

Ah, little things can be sooo pleasing 😊

What pleasing discoveries have you made about obscure curiosities in books?

in one of the Laura Ingalls wilder books the strange ball of fire that appears is a documented case of ball lightning. I first read about ball lightning in Arthur C Clarke "World of strange Mysteries".

I can’t remember which book it was that I learned this.

Our house originally had an old Rayburn with a bread oven next to it. I first thought this meant the bread was cooked in it.

The bread oven has no direct heating, but is just an enclosed space next to a heat source that was warm enough for proving the bread in a house that would have had no warm spots. Ie before central heating and airing cupboards and boilers.

I also like the historical details in the Poldark series.I remember an account of couple coming back to the house when the servants are away. They want to have a cup of tea, but first have to draw the water from the well and make up a fire.

That's how come newborn lambs were kept warm in the oven in some of the Herriot novels! It never made any sense to me.

Excellent thread idea!

For anyone who reads Victorian fiction, Judith Flanders’ The Victorian house is excellent for illuminating little domestic details — like Mrs Fairfax giving Leah the keys of the storeroom when she asks her to make Jane Eyre a hot negus and a sandwich. Even in a tiny household with longterm, trusted under-servants, the mistress or housekeeper would keep household items and foodstuffs locked away from pilfering and waste. Negus involved wine or port, sugar, spices, and oranges or lemons, so ‘prestige’ ingredients a servant wouldn’t be trusted with free access to.

Mealtimes differing between households in Jane Austen as a sign of different levels of fashionability — Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice gets a note from Jane (who got a cold riding to Netherfield and stayed the night) at the Bennet breakfast time, and has time to finish her meal and walk three miles cross-country and still arrive at Netherfield on time for their much later breakfast. It was a sign of money, city-fied ways and fashion to have late meals — in part because it was cheaper to make dinner by daylight and not have to pay for lamps/candles, which meant in winter eating by mid-afternoon..

’Girl with a Louding Voice’ contained a lot of information about Nigeria. It was fascinating.