The Tentacles of Tradition

IT has long been proverbial that he who has a name as an early riser may lie a-bed till noon. The power of reputation is such that, even in the present day, desperately ill people will travel to Harley Street, and knock at one of the doors at random in the pathetic expectation that they will now be cured. Similarly, the name of Gretna Green has acquired such fame, on the Continent as well as in England, that runaway couples continue to reside there for the statutory fifteen days and the week's interval that must follow, sometimes in considerable discomfort, unaware that the liberal law that prevails in Gretna also holds good in the rest of Scotland, and that they could have been married as speedily, and in more elevating surroundings, in Edinburgh or Aberdeen. Each year the advertising industry provides fresh examples of the way brand-names can conjure up alluring associations not necessarily relevant to the product; and it appears that even the scientifically-minded can unconsciously be influenced by a name or misnomer, and this even in their own subject. Dr W. C. Osman Hill has shown that Himalayan expeditions may have been led astray by the name of the 'Abominable Snowman'. In a recent article in Oryx he pointed out that this picturesque name arose through an error in a cable, in 1921, when the Tibetan words for 'man-like wild creature' were made to read 'dirty snowman'.1 The reason why a Meh-teh or Yeh-teh has not yet been caught may well be that searchers have been looking for it in the eternal snows, when there is no reason in nature to suppose that the creature dwells above the snowline

Ancient history · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Medieval Literature and History

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