E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
MacGirdie’s Mare,
used by degrees to eat less and less, but just as he had reduced her to a straw a day the poor beast died. This is an old Greek joke, which is well known to schoolboys who have been taught the Analecta Minra. (See Waverley, p. 54.)
ra. (See Waverley, p. 54.)
