Strange but TRUE

• It was beloved English author J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for fantasy tales “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” who made the following sage observation about his chosen genre: “I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison walls?”

• You might be surprised to learn that thieves, too, have a patron saint: Saint Dismas. Incidentally, he’s also the patron saint of prisoners and funeral directors.

• You’re probably aware that nocturnal animals are active at night and that diurnal animals are active during the day. But what about creatures that prefer the twilight hours? Yep, they have a name, too: They’re crepuscular.

• Those who study such things say that ecdysiasts — those performers better known as stripteasers — are likely to be first-born children.

• In a recent survey of Americans and Britons, conducted on behalf of meditation app Calm. com, respondents reported that they get their best sleep of the week on Thursday nights, while Sunday night is the worst for sleeping.

• In India at one time, it was believed that eggshells held clues to the future. Fortunetellers would smash a hen’s egg against a special board, then interpret the pattern made by the fragments of shell.

• Add this to the list of America’s puzzling small-town festivals: Every June, the town of Ainsworth, Nebraska, puts on the Middle of Nowhere Celebration.

••• Thought for the Day: “The true test of a civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops — no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson