Most people assume that the phrase web of lies is a simple metaphor. They assume that it refers to a collection of lies that are as intricately woven as a spider's web. They assume an ass of themselves.
When the British government conducted one of its regular censuses in the 21st century, a startling proportion of the population claimed that their religion was Jedi, in order to irk the powers that be. This British tradition of making a mockery of serious attempts to better administer their grim land has its roots in the Domesday book.
After the 1066 Norman conquest, the Domesday book was compiled as a consensus of who the newly conquered people were and what they possessed. An astonishing proportion of the population took the opportunity to make a mockery of their Norman overlords.
There was a farmer in Somerset who claimed to be in the possession of a 42 ton pig. A blacksmith in Rochdale claimed to have coated his children in molten metal. The Archbishop of Yorkshire claimed to have fathered 4600 children, all of them female.
The Normans, being French, curled their lips and sneered at this typically British mockery. They went about the villages and towns of England with a plan to ensure they would never again be openly ridiculed.
For every untrue thing a person had claimed in their census, the Normans plucked a hair from their head. The hairs were returned to London, where they were woven into a giant web, warning the English to never again be so bloody sarcastic.
The web of lies was over a mile in diameter. Strung between the rooftops of the city centre, every time an Englishman looked to the heavens in his capital during the period of Norman rule, he was greeted with a reflection of his people's idiocy. At least, that was the Norman's intention.
The plan backfired and the impressive web of lies caused people from all across Britain to visit the English capital to ogle it. People would wander the streets searching for a glimpse of the hair that had been plucked from their own head, which they would then boast about. The taverns of London were filled with such tedious boasting for decades after the conquest.
The web of lies became such a recognizable London landmark that it was kept in place long after the Normans had been kicked back across the Channel to their motherland. It remained suspended over the city until its destruction during the Great Fire of London in 1666. The flammable web of human hair played no small part in helping the fire to sweep through the city with astonishing speed.
Many historians contend that this six hundred year old strand of netting was a breeding ground for bacteria, and one theory posits that the bubonic plague which so ravaged London in the years leading up to the Fire was in fact spawned within the web itself. It seems the sneering Normans had the last laugh over their belligerent subjects.
Without realizing, when people today speak of a 'web of lies', they are referring to lies which will eventually spawn pestilence and possibly even cause an entire city to become engulfed in flames.
