Sam Gribley tells this story in the fifth chapter of the book, titled “This Is About the Old, Old Tree.” It takes place in the early days of his time living on his own in the Catskill Mountains. Sam sees a crow quietly fly into a grove of trees. He had been used to hearing the noisy crows in Central Park when he lived in New York City, so this silent crow is unusual to him. At first he thinks he’s going to try to catch the bird to eat it. But instead, he sees a nearby nest made of big sticks. He climbs the tree and finds that the nest holds crow eggs. He decides to eat them for lunch instead of the bird itself, in addition to a wild-grown salad he put together. He’s beginning to learn to live off the resources the landscape offers.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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