Nobody here asked, but since I just sent this in response to an inquiry elsewhere, I thought I'd take advantage of keystrokes already made:

Bearding the lion = to be uncommonly and rashly brave; to be so courageous as to dare to seize a lion by the beard.

From the Latin, "mortuo leoni et lepores insultant," and hares leaping at dead lions. Shakespeare, in King John, said, "Your are the Hare of whom the Prouerb goes, Whose valour plucks dead Lyons by the Beard" quoting perhaps from Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedie, "Hares may pull dead lions by the beard."

- per Charles Funk in A Hog on Ice.

Does anyone here know anything about the origins of the phrase "Bearding the lion in his den"?

Care to go for the audible daily double?

"Independent as a hog on ice" is one of the best phrases out there, and sadly underused. Since you're dispensing knowledge, Sparteye, and appear to have the relevant tome handy, would you tell us the origins of this one?

A hog on ice: Charles Funk expended great effort in an attempt to trace the expression. He could not find a definite answer, but concluded that it probably arose in Scotland from curling terminology:

Hence, though my conclusion cannot be proved, I think that sometime during the the early centuries of the game, perhaps by accident one of the awkward, heavy stones did not have enough momentum to carry it to its destination and it stopped halfway along the course. I think that someone made the suggestion that it be allowed to stay there as an extra hazard, and I think that, because of its unwieldiness and its inertness, becoming party frozen into the ice, some player with a sense of humor likened it to a hog -- and the name stuck. If this hypothesis be correct, then the very fact that the stone occupied a central position, showing no regard to its interference with subsequent players, like an automobile driver who "hogs" the center of a road, made it appear self-assured, cocky, and independent, and thus gave rise to the humorous simile that came down through the centuries.

PS - has anybody here besides me ever curled? Bean? BelM?

Taken literally the image always makes me laugh. A hog, slip sliding on ice but independent as, well, a hog on ice!

has anybody here besides me ever curled? Bean? BelM?

Uhhh...no...but most of the rest of the country has. I'd like to. My husband says it's fun.

I have, however, played sponge hockey. I even have a T-shirt to prove it. I played for four years. It's like hockey, but you wear broomball shoes instead of a skates and the puck is a sponge puck rather than a real one. (It's great if you can't afford the full hockey equipment, or if you can't skate but love the game!) It's totally fun, but apparently pretty specific to Winnipeg. Or so I hear. However, "hog on ice" make me think of myself on sponge hockey shoes. Lots of motion, no net displacement of my centre of mass!

Never done it, but used to watch it when I was a child, after the ice skating sessions at Richmond Ice Rink - my Saturday morning Mecca!

Those were the days {reminiscent-sigh emoticon}