Minor Notes.
Curious Epitaph in Dalkeith Churchyard.
—The following inscription is on the tombstone of one Margaret Scott, who died in the town of Dalkeith, February 9, 1738, aged 125 years:—
"Stop passenger, until my life you read:
The living may get knowledge by the dead.
Five times five years I lived a virgin's life:
Ten times five years I was a virtuous wife:
Ten times five years I lived a widow chaste;
Now, weary'd of this mortal life, I rest.
Between my cradle and my grave have been
Eight mighty kings of Scotland and a queen.
Four times five years the Commonwealth I saw;
Ten times the subjects rose against the law.
Twice did I see old Prelacy pull'd down;
And twice the cloak was humbled by the gown.
An end of Stuart's race I saw: nay, more!
My native country sold for English ore.
Such desolations in my life have been,
I have an end of all perfection seen."
I thought that the above instance of what might be termed "historical longevity" was worthy of a place in your pages, along with others proving how "traditions from remote periods may come through few hands."
BLOWEN.
Device of SS.
—However doubtful may be the derivation of our English "Collar of Esses," there is a pretty explanation given of a similar device granted to a Spanish nobleman.
It is said that Gatierre de Cardenas was the first person who announced to the young Princess Isabella of Castile the approach of her future husband, Ferdinand of Aragon (after his romantic journey to Valladolid in 1469), exclaiming, "Esse es, esse es,"—"This is he!" He obtained permission to add to his escutcheon the letters SS. to commemorate this circumstance.
O. P. Q.
Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
—Having seen in "NOTES AND QUERIES" a remark about Lord Edward Fitzgerald, I wish to add the following.
The body of Lord Edward Fitzgerald has never been removed by his relatives, but has lain in an outside vault or passage, under the parish church of St. Werburgh, Dublin, until very lately, when (I believe within the last year) Lady Campbell, widow of General Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., and daughter of Pamela, caused it to be placed in an oak coffin, the old one being greatly decayed. It is now removed into what is called the chancel vault.
L. M. M.
The Michaelmas Goose.
—Why it is that here in England—
"—— by custom (right divine)
Geese are ordained to bleed at Michael's shrine,"
is a mystery still unsolved by English antiquaries. For, even if the story that Queen Elizabeth was eating a goose on Michaelmas Day when she received the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, rested on unquestionable authority, it would not explain the origin of the custom, since Brand has shown, by a reference to Blount's Jocular Tenures, that it existed as early as the tenth year of Edward IV. If we seek an illustration from the practice of our continental neighbours, we shall fail; or only learn that we have transferred to the Feast of St. Michael a practice which is observed abroad on that of St. Martin, the 11th November: indeed, St. Martin's Bird is a name by which the goose is known among many of the continental nations. In the Runic Calendar the 11th November is marked by a goose. In the old Bauern Practica (ed. 1567), Wintermonat or November boasts, in one of the Rhymes of the Month,—
"Fat geese unto the rich I sell."
And in the curious old Story Book of Peter Leu, reprinted by von der Hagen in his Narrenbuch, one of the adventures commences:
"It fell upon St. Martin's Day,
When folks are wont goose-feasts to keep."
A learned German, however, Nork (Festkalender, s. 567.), sees in our Michaelmas Goose the last traces of the goose offered of old to Proserpina, the infernal goddess of death (on which account it is that the figure of this bird is so frequently seen on monumental remains); and also of the offerings (among which the goose figured) formerly made to Odin at this season, a pagan festival which on the introduction of Christianity was not abolished, but transferred to St. Michael.
WILLIAM J. THOMS.
Gravesend Boats (Vol. ii., p. 209.).
—In a letter from Sir Thomas Heneage to Sir Christopher Hatton, dated 2nd May, 1585, given in Nicolas's Memoir of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (p. 426.), is this passage:
"Her Highness thinketh your house will shortly be like a Gravesend barge, never without a knave, a priest, or a thief," &c.
"Her Highness" was Queen Elizabeth, and the purport of the letter was to convey "her Highness's pleasure" touching one Isaac Higgins, then in the custody of Sir Christopher Hatton.
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge, Sept. 19. 1851.
Skull-cups.
—There are so very few consecutive and methodical readers left, that it is not surprising that Mr. Blackwell, the editor of Bohn's Mallet, should have adopted the groundless charge of one Magnusen against Olaus Wormius, who understood Ragnar's death-song much better than certain ironical dilettanti of Cockneyland. Charlemagne's secretary, Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard deacon of Aquileia, swears that, about 200 years after the event, King Ratchis had shown him the cup made out of Cunimund's skull, in which Queen Rosamund, his daughter, refused to drink, in the year 574.[15] (Paul. Diac. ii. 8.) Open the Acta Sanctorum for the 1st of May, and they will tell you that the monks of Triers had enchased in silver the skull of St. Theodulf, out of which they administered fever-drink to the sick. Moreover, when, in the year 1465, Leo von Rozmital came to Neuss, he saw a costly tomb wherein lay the blessed Saint Quirinus, and he drank out of his skull-cup. St. Sebastian's skull at Ebersberg, and St. Ernhart's at Ratisbonne, had also been converted into chalices.
[15] See Grotius's valuable Collection of Gothic and Lombard Historians.
I refer the reader to Jacob Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, pp. 143. 146., for further details: he shows that to drink ale out of buigvîdum hausa, can only mean out of "hollow skulls," literally "vacuitas curva."
To prove the antiquity of the custom, Grimm alleges likewise a passage of the Vilkinasaga, in which Völundr, the smith, our Belenger,[16] or Will o' the Wisp, enchases in silver the amputated skulls of Nidads' two boys.
[16] Fœu Bélenger, in one of the dialects of the Low-Norman Isles.
GEORGE MÉTIVIER.