Gerard de Nerval, noted as much for his periodic bouts of madness as for his literary work, once took to carrying an old apron string which he claimed had had a previous incarnation -- as the Queen of Sheba's garter.

Before dawn on January 26, 1855, the impoverished poet knocked upon a poorhouse door but was turned away on account of the cold. His body was soon discovered, hanged with the Queen of Sheba's supposed garter and watched over by a pet raven repeating the words: "J'ai soif! J'ai soif!" (I'm thirsty!)

[The apron string was also once said by Nerval to have served as Mme de Maintenon's corset-string.]