英语词汇rat king的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

rat king. The famous Rattenkonig, or “rat king,” occurs when young rats close to one another in the nest get their tails en- tangled and become a living Gordian knot glued together by dirt-encrusted wounds and the like. When they try to pull apart, the tails are pulled tight, and the knots strengthen, knit- ting the rats together. As many as 32 rats have been trapped in these knots and have died as a result of being unable to forage for themselves. However, they are often unselfishly fed for life by other family members. There is no doubt that rat kings ex- ist; 60 or so have been reported in Europe since 1564 and about 40 (most of them found alive) have been authenticated, the latest in 1963. Rat kings have frequently been preserved, painted, and photographed, and in 1774 a 16–rat king was ex- amined by a Leipzig court in connection with a charge that a miller’s apprentice had cheated his master by stealing the king from him and pocketing a tidy sum by exhibiting it. The name rat king may come from the old superstition that an aged wise rat sat on the entangled tails of rats and was treated as royalty by the pack.

词汇	rat king
词源	rat king. The famous Rattenkonig, or “rat king,” occurs when young rats close to one another in the nest get their tails en- tangled and become a living Gordian knot glued together by dirt-encrusted wounds and the like. When they try to pull apart, the tails are pulled tight, and the knots strengthen, knit- ting the rats together. As many as 32 rats have been trapped in these knots and have died as a result of being unable to forage for themselves. However, they are often unselfishly fed for life by other family members. There is no doubt that rat kings ex- ist; 60 or so have been reported in Europe since 1564 and about 40 (most of them found alive) have been authenticated, the latest in 1963. Rat kings have frequently been preserved, painted, and photographed, and in 1774 a 16–rat king was ex- amined by a Leipzig court in connection with a charge that a miller’s apprentice had cheated his master by stealing the king from him and pocketing a tidy sum by exhibiting it. The name rat king may come from the old superstition that an aged wise rat sat on the entangled tails of rats and was treated as royalty by the pack.
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