I think I first heard of it from Tweedy bird cartoons. Tweedy gets salt poured on his tail and he can’t fly away. There is also a reference to this practice in a bad b-movie from the 50’s called “The Claw”…big evil bird terrorizes the neighborhood…they try to stop it by pouring salt on its tail…needless to say it doesnt work…but at least it puts somewhat of a date on the expression.
i’ve used this expression in the context.“i’ll pour some salt on her tail.” meaning “i’ll keep her here for a while.” few people seem to get it. anyone know the story behind it?
I heard that as a child in Oklahoma, that if you sprinkle salt on a bird’s tail it can’t fly away. The way it was explained to me is that you tell that to someone who is trying to catch a bird, and it frustrates them more because you can’t get close enough to sprinkle the salt.
There’s a nursery rhyme that includes this also. Something about a “dickie bird”. It’s in one of my books from childhood. I don’t know why it works but I am very intrigued!
If you are crafty enough to sneak up upon a bird and salt its tail, you also have the ability to snatch it off its perch. Not much more than that to it I’m afraid.
personally I like the idea of a nursery rhyme…anyone else remember evilbeth’s rememberance…salting chickens prior to roasting seems a little silly…I can relate to children’s stories.
I found some info about sprinkling salt on the tails of birds but none of it relates to them not being able to fly. This site talks about it making wishes come true. At least one site I found says that sprinkling salt on a bird’s tail is good luck.
I cannot seem to locate that nursery rhyme. Come on, all you British posters, I’m sure your mothers or grandmothers or someone read you this rhyme at least once. Help me out! It mentions something about taking some salt with you to sprinkle on it’s tail. Help–it’s driving me nuts!
Thanks to Carl Bark’s comic books, I always thought it was literal.
When I was a wee child, I had a nice canary. But his cage was too tiny, so I asked dad for a bigger one, so he could have more space to fly around. When I made the switch, I poured some salt in his tail, so he would’nt fly away. Well, It didn’t worked.
