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When Tulips first arrived in the Netherlands, the nation is said to have lost its collective

mind. Many of you've probably heard the story of the sailor who in 1637 arrived at the warehouse

of a wealthy Dutch merchant to notify him that a ship filled with his goods had just arrived

in port. The merchant delighted to hear this news, rewarded the sailor with a breakfast of fine

red herring. The sailor saw what appeared to be an onion lying on the

countertop, a bit out of place amongst the bales of goods. He slipped it into his pocket to add

flavour to his herring and headed back to the port where he could sit down to eat. No sooner than he left

the warehouse, then the merchant realised that a valuable

Semper Augustus Tulip bulb worked more than a mansion in a fashionable Amsterdam neighbourhood was gone.

The merchant and his staff tore the warehouse apart searching for the missing bulb.

A staff member remembered the sailor who had just left, and the merchant

and his staff raced to the port in search of the sailor and the missing bulb. The sailor was found

sitting on a coil of ropes, eating the last bite of his onion-garnished herring. He had been

at sea long enough to have missed the news about the

tulip mania that was consuming the nation. Little did he dream that he had been eating a breakfast

whose cost might have fed the entire ship's crew for a few years. The sailor was charged with

a felony and thrown in prison for his crime.

Tulip mania is a great story.

According to the Scottish journalist Charles McKay who told this story in his popular book,

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,

...