Charles Dickens and "caul".................

Your faithful blogger has become entranced by the writing of Charles Dickens.  People just don't write that way anymore.  Our loss.  The paragraph posted below comes from the first chapter of David Copperfield.  I had zero idea of what a "caul" was.  Since the word is central to the paragraph, I hazarded an incorrect guess or two, but kept reading.  I've committed myself to reading a minimum of five chapters of Dickens per day this week, and thought I dare not stop.  Flexing the old discipline muscle.  Check in next week.  I'll let you know how it went.

Anyway, after the fifth chapter was safely read, the Oracle Google was consulted concerning the word "caul:"

 A caul (Latin: Caput galeatum, literally, "helmeted head") is a piece of membrane that can cover a newborn's head and face.^[1] Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the physician or midwife upon delivery of the child.

In medieval times the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck.^[6] It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an heirloom. Some Early Modern European traditions linked caul birth to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.^[7]

A legend developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would give its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by sailors. Medieval women often sold these cauls to sailors for large sums of money; a caul was regarded as a valuable talisman.^[8]