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To hell in a handcart

Posted by Smokey Stoverd on March 08, 2004

In Reply to: To hell in a handcart posted by ESC on March 08, 2004

: : In Fairford church, Gloucestershire, the great West window (installed before 1517 AD) shows the Day of Judgment in stained glass, with the innocent going to heaven and the guilty going to hell. Among the latter is an old woman in a wheelbarrow, being pushed to her doom by a blue devil. So the idea of "going to hell in a handcart" is a good 500 years old.

: That is interesting.

Out here in the former colony, we sometimes say "Going to hell in a handbasket." I was never sure exactly what a handcart was, but I'm even more baggled by "handbasket." Nonetheless, I think I get the general drift of the expression. SS

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