Origins
In the English play Lingua (1607) the practice is said to come from classical antiquity: "when Hercules had killed the flaming dragon of Hesperia with the apples of that orchard, he made this fiery meat; in memory whereof he named it Snapdragon." Brooks' Master Sandy's Snapdragon suggests another mythical origin, relating the fire of snap-dragons to Saint George and the dragon. Chambers suggests that it hearkens back to druidic fire-worship. According to the Oxford English Dictionary entry for flapdragon, "the original sense may have been identical with a dialectal sense of snapdragon, viz. a figure of a dragon's head with snapping jaws, carried about by the mummers at Christmas; but of this there is no trace in our quots".
Read more about this topic: Snap-dragon (game)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)