Brewer's: Autolycus

The craftiest of thieves. He stole the flocks of his neighbours, and changed their marks. Sisyphos out-witted him by marking his sheep under their feet, a device which so tickled the rogue that he instantly

“cottoned” to him. Shakespeare introduces him in The Winter's Tale as a pedlar, and says he was called the son of Mercury, because he was born under that “thieving planet.”

“Autolycus is no lapidary, though he drives a roaring trade in flash jewellery.” —Pall Mall Gazette.

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