Countess of Laussitz - Matilda, too, by the mark! A good name, a marvellous good name, is not, Algernon? Musical, pretty, soft, smoothing, loveable. - - - many a fair prospect is spoiled by the mistake in the name. Call Matilda Joan, or Louisa Deborah, and you are ruined forever!

At one time Joan invented other names for her. 'Matilda' brought to mind dingy curtains, gray tent flaps, a slack-skinned old woman. How about Sharon? Lilliane? Elizabeth? Then, Joan didn't know how, the name Matilda became transformed. It started shining like silver. The "il" in it was silver. But not metallic. In Joan's mind the name gleamed now like a fold of satin.

Oh there once was a swagman camped in the billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling,
'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda, with me.'

1906, A. B. Paterson, On The Road to Gundagai, The Old Bush Songs, Gutenberg eBook #10493,
In a week the spree was over and the cheque was all knocked down, / So we shouldered our “Matildas,” and we turned our backs on town, / And the girls they stood a nobbler as we sadly said “Good bye,” / And we tramped from Lazy Harry’s, not five miles from Gundagai;

When a hobo roams through the outback with a matilda on his back, he is said to be “waltzing matilda.”

Matilda

Meaning

Noun

Name

Related