There is a statue of a warthog in the centre of Sydney outside a hospital on Macquarie Street. It was, a plaque notes, a gift from a visiting Italian delegation. The nose is shinier than the rest of it, and the plaque explains that too. “According to legend,” it says, “rubbing the warthog’s nose grants good luck.”
“According to legend” is an interesting way of putting it. It usually means that the origins of a story are a bit dubious, but the story itself is so old that it’s worth retelling anyway. This may not be the case here, however.
The warthog was erected in 1968.
Saturday, December 13, 2008 at 1:38 pm |
you know, there are people on the internet today, for whom 1968 is lost in the mists of prehistory. According to the internet, the world started in 1994. Before that, all is just speculation and myth.
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 1:16 am |
Yup. “Citizen journalism,” they call it. Do a Google search for something and cite it. Point proven.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 10:31 pm |
All legends have to start somewhere, don’t they? I like to think of myself as a legend, and I was erected after 1968.