Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—B

Bag o' Nails

Some hundreds of years ago there stood in the Tyburn Road, Oxford Street, a public-house called The Bacchanals: the sign was Pan and the Satyrs. The jolly god, with his cloven hoof and his horns, was called “The devil;” and the word Bacchanals soon got corrupted into “Bag o' Nails.” The Devil and the Bag o' Nails is a sign not uncommon even now in the midland counties.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Baga de Secretis
Bag-man
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