PRIEST HOLES

After winning four games of Mahjong Solitaire on the AARP website last night, I told the boyfriend we oughta head for a casino.  Most nights bring zero victory and then BAM!  AARP games are free benefits, so why not partake.  The game forces my brain to remember where tiles are located on the board so I can find two the same, and that's how the board eventually empties.  My scores pale compared to the daily big winners, but am not in it for the competition.  The only competitor left in my life is me.  https://games.aarp.org/games/mahjongg-solitaire

Learned something new.  Agatha Christie, in "Then There Were None," refers to the priest's hole in old English manor houses.  Hmmmm.  Google time!  Have been a RC all my life and not once have I heard the term.  Here's an explanation found in the National Catholic Register.....  "It was a capital crime to celebrate Mass in Elizabethan England.  Priests were publicly hanged for doing it.  Nobles and higher gentry could find their lands and estates confiscated by the Crown for the 'crime' of worshiping as Roman Catholics.  So many of the great houses of England, especially in the North Country, were built with hiding places cleverly concealed from searchers.  There, they could quickly pack away their clerics and rosaries, vestments, Douay Bibles and even the prie dieus (prayer desk) on which devout Catholics knelt and prayed."

This reminds me of the Underground Railroad here in the U.S.  Maybe that's where the idea of secret hiding places built in homes originated.

For those not familiar, the Douay Bible is a translation from the Latin Vulgate into English by members of the Catholic seminary English College, in Douay (also spelled Douai), France.  It's the foundation on which nearly all English Catholic versions are still based. 

In Agatha Christie's book "Then There Were None," she refers to a "swan song."  That's a methaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort or performance given just before death.  The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death since they have been silent (or alternatively not so musical) for most of their lifetime.

Just love discovering these terms that I'm not familiar with.  The best part is having the internet at my fingertips to look for their meanings.  Maybe I'm an archaeologist at heart, always digging up something.