Lantern

In Christian art, the attribute of St. Gudule and St. Hugh.

The feast of lanterns. Tradition says that the daughter of a famous mandarin, walking alone by a lake one evening, fell in. The father called together his neighbours, and all went with lanterns to look for her, and happily she was rescued. In commemoration thereof an annual festival was held on the spot, and grew in time to the celebrated “feast of lanterns.” (Present State of China.)

À la lanterne. Hang him with the lantern or lamp ropes. A cry and custom introduced in the French revolution.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.