Silver bullet, literal (WAS: figurative 1945)

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Jan 10 20:52:27 UTC 2011


I think we've (I've) been through this before.  In Wallace and
Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Reverend Hedges gives Lord
Victor Quartermaine silver bullets to kill the Were-Rabbit (Wallace
under the influence).  "Reverend Hedges appears to have a wide range
of knowledge on the habits and the slayings of supernatural animals,
and has a whole cupboard filled with the weapons to defeat
them"(Wikipedia).  Knowledge presumably acquired by reading about the
Popish Plot, and English folklore from earlier periods.

Joel

At 1/10/2011 02:04 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

>Review of Stoker's novel shows Van Helsing pointing out several
>weaknesses of the vampire, including: "a sacred bullet fired into the
>coffin kill him so that he be true dead". I don't know exactly which
>bullets are sacred: maybe it's understood that this refers to a bullet
>specially blessed by the priest or something like that. I see no mention
>of a silver bullet.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list