E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Nab.
The fairy which offers Orpheus for food in the infernal regions a roasted ant, a flea’s thigh, butterflies’ brains, some sucking mites, a rainbow-tart, and other delicacies of like nature, to be washed down with dewdrops, beer made from seven barleycorns, and the supernaculum of earth-born topers. (King: Orpheus and Eurydice.)
