Monday, February 02, 2004

The Middle

From the Guardian's review of the history of prisoner exchange in light of the recent trade between Israel and Hizbullah:

"During the Hundred Years' war, the French had a penchant for cutting off the index and middle fingers of captured English archers, then turning them free in the knowledge that they were no longer militarily useful. The bowmen who remained unmutilated, it is said, used to wave their fingers at the enemy in a gesture that remains well known to naughty schoolboys and sufferers from road rage."

Wouldn't they have raised both their middle and their index finger then?


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