fortunes of war...golden chain

[Jonathan Lighter]

The insigne of the Order of the Golden Fleece is a sheepskin on a heavy chain.

  Like Madonna, Knights and Ladies of the Garter wear their Garter on the outside.  But they also wear a heavy knotted golden chain around their necks, and, as the OGF is Spanish and Austrian rather than English, that may indeed be the allusion in the old rhyme.

  Which, BTW, I can't find in EEBO or ECCO, so it may not be as old as all that.

  There's nothing helpful on the Web or in my 15th ed. bartlett's (1980). Fred, do you know the source of the verse?

  JL
Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: fortunes of war...golden chain
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Wasn't the lamb the insigne (at the time that I learned to read,
people still distinguished between the singular insigne [In sIg ni]
and the plural insignia) of the Golden Fleece?

-Wilson

On 7/7/06, George Thompson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: George Thompson
> Subject: Re: fortunes of war...golden chain
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As a guess: the golden chain would be worn about the neck as a sign of
> honor. Didn't the Order of the Garter include a figure -- a lamb? --
> worn about the neck on a thick golden chain? Don't know who paid for
> the chain, though. A more satisfactory honor if the king picked up
> the tab.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Lynne Murphy
> Date: Tuesday, July 4, 2006 6:17 pm
> Subject: fortunes of war...golden chain
>
> > Can anyone tell me what the 'golden chain' is in:
> >
> > "The fortunes of war
> > I'll tell you plain
> > are a wooden leg
> > or a golden chain"
> >
> > ?
> >
> > Ta,
> > Lynne
> >
> >
> > Dr M Lynne Murphy
> > Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
> > Arts B133
> > University of Sussex
> > Brighton BN1 9QN
> >
> > phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
> > http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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