In Norse mythology, Nótt is night personified, grandmother of Thor. In both the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, Nótt is listed as the daughter of a figure by the name of Nörvi and is associated with the horse Hrímfaxi, while the Prose Edda features information about Nótt's ancestry, including her three marriages. Nótt's third marriage was to the god Dellingr and this resulted in their son Dagr, the personified day; as a proper noun, the word nótt appears throughout Old Norse literature. In stanza 24 of the poem Vafþrúðnismál, the god Odin asks the jötunn Vafþrúðnir from where the day comes, the night and its tides. In stanza 25, Vafþrúðnir responds: Delling hight he who the day's father is, but night was of Nörvi born. In stanza 14 of the Vafþrúðnismál, Odin states that the horse Hrímfaxi "draws every night to the beneficent gods" and that he lets foam from his bit fall every morning, from which dew comes to the valleys.

In stanza 30 of the poem Alvíssmál, the god Thor asks the dwarf Alvíss to tell him what night is called in each of the nine worlds, whom "Nórr" birthed. Alvíss responds that night is referred as "night" by mankind, "darkness" by the gods, "the masker" by the mighty Powers, "unlight" by the jötunn, "joy-of-sleep" by the elves, while dwarves call her "dream-Njörun". In Sigrdrífumál, after the valkyrie Sigrdrífa is woken from her sleep curse by the hero Sigurd, Sigurd asks her name, she gives him a "memory-drink" of a drinking horn full of mead, Sigrdrifa says a heathen prayer; the first verse of this prayer features a reference to the "sons of Dagr" and the "daughter of Nótt": Hail to the Day! Hail to the sons of Day! To Night and her daughter hail! With placid eyes behold us here, here sitting give us victory. Hail to the Æsir! Hail to the Asyniur! Hail to the bounteous earth! Words and wisdom give to us noble twain, healing hands while we live! In the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, Nótt is again personified.

In chapter 10, the enthroned figure of High states that Nótt is the daughter of a jötunn from Jötunheimr by the name of "Norfi or Narfi". Nótt is described as "black and swarthy", has had three marriages, her first marriage was with Naglfari, the two produced a son by the name of Auðr. Nótt's second marriage was to Annar, resulting in the personified earth. Nótt marries the god Dellingr, the couple have Dagr, who takes after his "father's people" in brightness and fairness. Odin took Nótt and her son Dagr, placed them into the sky with a chariot and a horse each, they ride around the earth every 24 hours. Nótt rides before Dagr, foam from her horse Hrímfaxi's bit sprinkles the earth. However, scholar Haukur Thorgeirsson points out that the four manuscripts of Gylfaginning vary in their descriptions of the family relations between Nótt, Jörð, Dellingr. In other words, depending on the manuscript, either Jörð or Nátt is the mother of Dagr and partner of Dellingr. Haukur details that "the oldest manuscript, U, offers a version where Jǫrð is the wife of Dellingr and the mother of Dagr while the other manuscripts, R, W and T, cast Nótt in the role of Dellingr's wife and Dagr's mother", argues that "the version in U came about accidentally when the writer of U or its antecedent shortened a text similar to that in RWT.

The results of this accident made their way into the Icelandic poetic tradition". In the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, means of referring to Jörð are provided, including "daughter of Nótt". Chapter 58 states that "Hrimfaxi or Fiorsvartnir draw the night", in chapter 64, "nótt" is stated as one of various words for time and a version of the Alvíssmál passage is cited

The Calendar of Nature is a series of articles by Leigh Hunt about aspects of various months and seasons published throughout 1819 in the Examiner. It is included in his Literary Pocket-Book and published on its own as The Months; the work places emphasis on the season of autumn as a time for justice and prosperity, influenced John Keats's poem "To Autumn". The emphasis on both works is on a temperate landscape and the positive political aspects of living in such a place; the work stresses the sickness, connected to a temperate landscape, related to the physical problems that Keats was suffering from at the time. In 1819, Hunt's The Calendar of Nature was printed in his periodical the Examiner; the poem describes the artistic connections to each of the months, descriptions of festivals, a discussion about nature. Hunt included the calendar in his collection the Literary Pocket-Book, a combination of poems and other material by Hunt and others; the work was first printed in January 1819, and, by 1823, there were five collections under the title.

The work was published in 1821 under the title The Months. The 1821 edition contained a preface which declared, "The good-nature with which this Calendar was received on its appearance in 1819... has induced its republication in a separate form, with considerable additions". The 1821 edition included the final two stanzas of John Keats's poem "To Autumn" with the claim that "A living poet has personified autumn in some of the pleasantest shapes under which her servants appear"; the work discusses the works of Edmund Spenser. The calendar refers to Shelley regarding autumn when it states: "The poet still takes advantage of the exuberance of harvest and the sign of the Zodiac in this month, to read us a lesson on justice". For September and autumn, Hunt connected the harvest and the month's zodiac symbol, Libra, in order to discuss justice. In particular, he said that autumn had "a certain festive abundance for the supply of all creation". Additionally, Hunt brings up Shelley's poems Convito and The Revolt of Islam in order to discuss autumn, abundance of crops, revolution.

The plenty that comes from the time period is supposed to bring peace to warring people. Hunt describes the natural events that take place during autumn: "This is the month of the migration of birds, of the finished harvest, of nut-gathering, of cyder and merry-making, towards the conclusion, of the change of colour in trees; the swallows, many other soft-billed birds that feed on insects, disappear for the warmer climates, leaving behind only a few stragglers from weakness or sickness, who hide themselves in caverns and other sheltered places, appear upon warm days." September, for instance, was used to promote the ideas of the commonwealth along with Hunt's views on Justice. The specific discussion on September came between a discussion of the Peterloo Massacre and a discussion of people on trial for sedition. Hunt wished to promote liberty, with a direct connection to nature; this view influenced Keats's "To Autumn", with its emphasis on "Merry Old England" and the reaction against the political violence of the time.

The works are similar in that they emphasize the same images, such as the animals and activities found during autumn. When Hunt republished parts of Keats's poem, he added an emphasis on justice through association with Hunt's own claims about autumn. Keats, like Hunt, emphasized a temperate landscape in his works. Hunt's description of autumn suggests vitality, though he describes sickness. In turn, he is commenting on other aspects of the land, it is possible that the temperate landscape is in opposition to the tropical, that the political implications are that tropical countries are less free while temperate ones are more so. As such, the extremes in the tropical climate reflect the political extremes; the descriptions of temperate climates are connected to medical aspects of British life representing various illnesses that befall people during autumn. People like Keats sought other climates; however and Hunt reveal a preference for the British landscape, this influenced the construction of "To Autumn".

Bewell, Alan. Romanticism and Colonial Disease. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Holden, Anthony; the Wit in the Dungeon. New York: Little and Company, 2005. Roe, Nicholas. Fiery Heart. London: Pimlico, 2005. Roe, Nicholas. John Keats and the Culture of Dissent. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Roe, Nicholas. Keats and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995

The Licked Hand, known sometimes as The Doggy Lick or Humans Can Lick Too, is an urban legend. It has several versions, has been found in print as early as February 1982 – Story "Bedtime for Sam". by DB Martin in ebdb books and was credited in two films. A young girl is home alone for the first time with only her dog for company. Listening to the news, she hears of a killer on the loose in her neighborhood. Terrified, she locks all the doors and windows, but she forgets about the basement window and it is left unlocked, she goes to bed, letting it sleep under her bed. She wakes in the night to hear a dripping sound coming from the bathroom; the dripping noise frightens her. To reassure herself, she reaches a hand toward the floor for the dog and is rewarded by a reassuring lick on her hand; the next morning when she wakes, she goes to the bathroom for a drink of water only to find her dead, mutilated dog hanging in the shower with his blood dripping onto the tiles. On the shower wall, written in the dog's blood, are the words "HUMANS CAN LICK, TOO."

Other story variations feature a nearsighted old woman rather than a young girl. The fate of the dog varies, from the dog being hanged to it being skinned, disembowelled, or otherwise mutilated; the message is sometimes written on the bathroom mirror rather than on the wall. Some versions include the parents' return and their discovery of the killer hiding elsewhere in the house the basement, the girl's bedroom closet, or under her bed. In other versions, the girl's parents arrive back in the morning and ask if their daughter had a good night; when she tells them that her dog had kept her calm by licking her hand, she is told that the dog in question had been locked either in the basement or outside. There is a forerunner in the 1919 story "The Diary of Mr. Poynter" by M. R. James, where a young man absently strokes his dog while reading an old manuscript account of the sinister death of a young student obsessed with his own hair. Of course, the creature crouching at his side is not the dog; this legend was featured in the film story credited to DB Martin.

In an episode of Showtime's series The L Word, Alice tells a version of the story with her friends as they sit around a campfire. The episode "Bedsit" from A Scare at Bedtime. A variation of the story is featured in the film Urban Legends: Final Cut. A version of the story is featured in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark; the episode "Family Remains" of Supernatural features an alteration on this story in which a feral child licks the hand of a teenage girl who panics when she realizes that her dog is in the hallway. In this version she sees the dog alive and realizes it's not the pet licking her, although the dog is mutilated when the show's heroes attempt to help the family escape; the legend is used by Bloody Mary in the follow-up to Urban Legends Final Cut, entitled Urban Legends: Bloody Mary, as a way to murder one of the high school boys that she sees as guilty for her death. The legend is referenced in John Dies at the End, where the main character goes to bed and wakes up to find his dog still licking his hand, until he realizes he can hear his dog lapping water from the toilet next door.

The story is told by Francis Boulle on a camping trip in an episode of Made in Chelsea. A variation of this story is told by one of the main characters in the premiere episode of The Enfield Haunting. A variation of this story is written as the backstory for the character Reimi Sugimoto from Jump manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 4, Diamond Is Unbreakable by Hirohiko Araki. David Martin Brown/DB Martin. "Bedtime for Sam". Calhoun, EBDB Books, is credited in two films for the origin of the legend. Baker, Ronald L. Hoosier Folk Legends. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982. Brunvand, Jan Harold; the Choking Doberman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1984. "Humans Can Lick Too" at Scaryforkids.com