Sieve

Definition and stakes

Portrait of Edward Lear Edward Lear,  Nonsense Books

“ Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our sieve we spin." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live: Their heads are green, and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.
”
Source: Gutenberg

Portrait of Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs,  English Fairy Tales (1890)

“ But when she dipped the sieve in the cold, cold water, it all ran out again. She tried and she tried again, but every time it was the same; and at last she sate down and cried as if her heart would break. ”
Source: Wikisource

Edward Lucas White,  The Unwilling Vestal

“ For an actual breathing woman of flesh and blood to carry water in a real ordinary sieve of rush-fibres, or linen thread or horsehair or metal wire, in such a sieve as pastry-cooks use to sift their finest flour; for that to happen in broad daylight under the open sky before a crowd of onlookers, that requires the special intervention of the blessed gods, or of the most powerful of them. ”
Source: Gutenberg

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