One for Sorrow (9 page)

   

The concept of this adage – that the possession of one valuable item is of greater worth than the
chance
of possessing two such items, or that a certainty is better than an uncertainty even if the latter is of more value – is clear.
    It is believed by some to have its origins in medieval hunting, though there is no evidence as to whether the reference is to the superior value of a trained raptor in the hand in comparison with two hunted birds hiding in the bush, or indeed in comparison with two birds of prey at liberty, or to the superior value of any bird in the hand to a pair deep in the undergrowth or high in the sky. A Latin proverb that would seem to support the latter interpretation is
‘
Plus valet in manibus passer, quam in nubibus anser
'
– ‘More valuable is a sparrow in the hands than a goose in the clouds'.
    An early precursor (fifth century
bc
) may be found in
Æ
sop's fable about the nightingale and the hawk. A nightingale, struggling in the hawk's talons, desperately tries to argue that it is so small it wouldn't satisfy the hawk's hunger and should be allowed to go free so that the hawk can pursue larger birds. To no avail: the hawk's reply is clear: ‘Not I, for I have been on the watch for you all day and I am not foolish enough to give up a certainty for an uncertainty.'
    The phrase as it is known today can be found as early as the thirteenth century in Latin: ‘
plus valet in manibus avis unica quam dupla silvis
', which translates as ‘more valuable is a single bird in the hands than twice as many in the woods'.
    Possibly the earliest English version in print is to be found in John Capgrave's
Life of St Katherine
(
c.
1450): ‘It is more sekyr [certain] a byrd in your fest, than to haue three in the sky a-boue.' It quickly became popular – and a number of versions were collected during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, generally varying only in the number of birds at liberty and whether they are flying or in the trees.
    Not everyone agrees with the adage. Some investment brokers would rather that potential investors were prepared to take risks, while to John Bunyan, it smacked of materialism and instant gratification:

That Proverb, A Bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush, is of more Authority with them, than are all the divine testimonies of the good of the world to come. (
The Pilgrim's Progress,
1678
)

In 1734 the first part of the phrase became the name of a small town in Pennsylvania, where local legend has it that two road surveyors stopped at an inn at what became the town's crossroads and decided that rather than continuing their journey in the hope of finding a wider choice of places to stay, they should remember that ‘a bird in the hand, etc.' and settle where they were.
   
Harper's Bazaar
of 23 June 1877 came up with this rejoinder:

‘A bird in the hand is worth two

In the bush' – so the proverbs say;

But then, what on earth can you do,

If the bird in your hand flies away?

   

When temperatures dropped in the Middle Ages, it was a serious matter. Cold could kill and fires had to be kept burning throughout the night to keep people warm. In the absence of modern forecasting equipment, telltale signs in the natural world that might indicate a particularly cold night were carefully observed. The stars were a particularly potent source of prophecy in folklore all over the world, providing a visual link to the heavens that captivated the earliest civilizations and that continues to fascinate us even in the face of our comparatively advanced modern understanding of the universe.
    This particular proverb reflects the observations of seventeenth-century country-dwellers that stars appear to shine more brightly than usual when the sky is completely clear. Though unscientific, their simple rhyme was absolutely accurate. Though the stars weren't actually shining more brightly, they did appear brighter from earth because their light was able reach the earth without being dimmed by passing through moisture in the air or being obscured from view by cloud.
    Though heavy cloud cover is associated with wet and cold seasonal weather, it also serves as an insulation blanket, trapping the warm air radiating from the earth, which has been absorbing the heat of the sun during the day. In the absence of cloud the warm air dissipates and is lost into the atmosphere, leaving earth bound star-gazers shivering.

The quarterly scholarly journal
Notes and Queries
seems to have put this ancient phrase in print for the first time in 1866, describing it as a ‘Pembrokeshire proverb', though the version it printed is subtly different to the one we use now:

Eat an apple on going to bed,
And you'll keep the doctor from

earning his bread.

There is evidence to suggest that the apple was held in high regard in Wales long before the health benefits we now associate them with could have begun to be understood. Several examples of early Welsh poetry are dedicated to the beauty of apple blossom, including the ‘Afallennau' (‘Merlin's Apple Trees') in
The Black Book of Camarthen
, a collection of poetry which was transcribed in around 1250 but describes events from as early as the sixth century.
    Another collection of early Welsh poetry,
The Red Book of Hergest
, includes descriptions of herbal remedies and makes clear the magical, curative properties of apples, describing them as a charm to combat ‘all sorts of agues'.
    And it seems they were right. We now know that many of the chemical properties of apples are directly beneficial to our health: they are rich in vitamin C, which reduces cholesterol and boosts the immune system; they're a rich source of phytochemicals that can act as cancer-fighting anti-oxidants and are believed to reduce risk of stroke, prostate cancer, Type II diabetes and asthma.

This phrase is now most often used in this form to provide comfort that we're not alone when our carefully laid plans have gone wrong.
    It comes from a poem called ‘To a Mouse' by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, which takes the form of a regretful speech to a field mouse whose nest he has overturned while ploughing. In it he describes his sorrow for the mouse as it discovers that the home it thought it could shelter in cosily throughout the winter is no more. The verse that the proverb comes from reads:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane

[alone
]
,

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley [Often go awry
]
,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an pain,
For promised joy!

Burns was widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and several of his works have become so central to the fabric of Scottish cultural life that they have woven themselves into the country's folklore. Burns also wrote the words to ‘Auld Lang Syne', which is traditionally sung on Hogmanay or New Year's Eve in Britain and the United States and the endurance of this phrase is testament to his status as a poet. Its popularity may also have been enhanced by John Steinbeck's use of part of the phrase as the title of his 1937 novel – 
Of Mice and Men
.

   

This phrase is thought to originate from central Asia in the days before the Persian Empire, when the region north of the Hindu Kush was known as Bactria.
    The saying is quoted in a biography of Alexander the Great, written between
ad
41 and 54, by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus :
‘Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi
,' which translates as ‘The deepest rivers flow with least sound.'
    As with any piece of history with such an ancient provenance it is impossible to be sure of the details surrounding its early applications, but it seems likely that it was used literally as a reminder of the dangers of attempting to cross a river that looked calm. For Alexander the Great and his vast armies, a shallow river would have been passable but deep water was a threat. If a river ran quietly and its surface was smooth, it might because the rocks along the riverbed were so deeply submerged that they didn't disturb the flow of water.
    In 1300 the proverb appeared, as ‘There the flode is deppist the water standis stillist', in the popular Middle English poem
Cursor Mundi
, which is likely to have played an important role in cementing it in British folklore. The theologian Thomas Draxe included ‘Where riuers runne most stilly, they are the deepest' in his
Bibliotheca scholastica instructissima. Or, Treasurie of Ancient Adagies and Sententious Proverbes …
(1616), and it was subsequently picked up by other authors and compilers.
    At some stage the saying evolved into a metaphor for the way someone with an outwardly placid temperament is often passionate or hot-blooded underneath, and this is how we use the phrase today.

   

Advocating the benefits of acting promptly, this saying simply means that fixing a problem as soon as it is spotted will save time later as it can only get worse – getting the needle and thread out to carry out a timely mend might require just a single stitch whereas if you ignore the hole until it has grown larger, you'll have to spend more time and use more stitches to mend it. (‘Nine' stitches probably only because it came nearest to rhyming with ‘time'.)
    The phrase's literal applications would have rung true for most common people in centuries gone by as fabric was very expensive and clothing had to last. Most garments were made from wool or linen and where they wore thin or tore they would have been mended.
    The adage is likely to have been passed on by word of mouth for many years before it was finally put into print in 1732 in Thomas Fuller's
Gnomologia,
in which the phrase was given, as:

A stitch in time may save nine.

In 1797 English astronomer Francis Baily left out the hesitant ‘may' of Fuller's version when he noted it in his journal as ‘A stitch in time saves nine', which is how we use the phrase today. It is usually employed to chivvy someone into attending to some small but irritating task that they would much rather put off indefinitely.