The Three Army-Surgeons
39, is given: " 'Weel, there's ane abune a', but we'll see if the red cock craw not in his bonnie barn-yard ae morning before day dawing.' 'What does she mean?' 'Fire-raising,' answered the laconic Dominie." Sir Walter Scott was, however, a German scholar at a time when German was little studied, and the picturesqueness of the expression may have induced him to import it into North Britain.—TR.
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884)
There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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