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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:

    â€˜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?
    Â   

Cold is the night, when the stars shine bright
    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.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away
    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.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
    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