Replies to Minor Queries.
Mazer Wood and Sin-eaters (Vol. iii., pp. 239. 288.).
—The following extract from Hone's Year Book, p. 858., will add to the explanation furnished by S. S. S., and will also give an instance of the singular practices which prevailed among our ancestors:—
"Among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum are statements in Aubrey's own handwriting to this purport. In the county of Hereford, was an old custom at funerals, to hire poor people, who were to take upon them the sins of the party deceased. One of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable, poor rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Rosse highway. The manner was, that when the corpse was brought out of the house, and laid on the bier, a loaf of bread was brought out, and delivered to the sin eater, over the corpse, as also a mazard bowl of maple, full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, ipso facto, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead."
Perhaps some of your readers may be able to throw some light on this curious practice of sin-eating, or on the existence of regular sin-eaters.
E. H. B.
Demerary.
[Mr. Ellis, in his edition of Brande's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 155. 4to. has given a curious passage from the Lansdowne MSS. concerning a sin-eater who lived in Herefordshire, which has been quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcii. pt. i. p. 222.]
"A Posie of other Men's Flowers" (Vol. iv., pp. 58. 125.).
—If D. Q. should succeed in finding this saying in Montaigne's Works, I hope he will be kind enough to send an "Eureka!" to "NOTES AND QUERIES," as by referring to pp. 278. 451. of your second volume he will see that I am interested in the question.
I am still inclined to think that the metaphor, in its present concise form at all events, does not belong to Montaigne, though it may owe its origin to some passage in the Essays. See, for example, one in book i. chap. 24.; another in book ii. chap. 10., in Hazlitt's second edition, 1845, pp. 54. 186.
But I have not forgotten Montaigne's motto, "Que sçais-je?" The chances are that I am wrong. I should certainly like to see his right to the saying satisfactorily proved by reference to book, chapter, and page.
C. FORBES.
Temple.
At the conclusion of the preface to the thick 8vo. edition of the Elegant Extracts, Verse, published by C. Dilly, 1796, you will find these words:—
"I will conclude my preface with the ideas of Montaigne. 'I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them.'"
R. S. S.
56. Fenchurch Street.
Table Book (Vol. i., p. 215.).
—See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxi., Antiq. pp. 3-15, and some specimens in the museum of the Academy. (Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 74.)
R. H.
Briwingable (Vol. iv., p. 22.).
—I cannot find this word in any authority to which I have access. I derive it from
Sax. {briþan}, to brew, and {Eafel}, a tax; and think it the same as tolsester, a duty payable to the lord of the manor by ale-brewers, mentioned in Charta 55 Hen. III.: "Tolsester cerevisie, hec est pro quolibet braccino per annum unam lagenam cerevisie."
F. J.
Simnels (Vol. iii., pp. 390. 506.).
—T. very sensibly suggests that Lambert Simnel is a nickname derived from a kind of cake still common in the north of England, and eaten in Lent. I have never met with Simnel as a surname, and have actually been told, as a child, that the Simnels were called after Lambert; which is so far worthy of note as that it connects the two together in tradition, though, no doubt, as T. suggests, it is Lambert who was called after the Simnels. As a child I took the liberty to infer, in consequence, that Parkins (gingerbread of oatmeal instead of flour, and also common in the north of England) were called after Perkin Warbeck. I am aware of the superior claim of Peterkin now; but the coincidence may perhaps amuse your correspondents.
†
A Ship's Berth (Vol. iv., p. 83.).
—I would suggest to your correspondents S. S. S. (2) another derivation for our word berth.
The present French berceau, a cradle, was in the Norman age written berȝ, as appears in a MSS. Life of St. Nicholas in the Bodleian Library. This Life has been printed at Bonn by Dr. Nicolaus Delius, 1850; but in the print the character ȝ has been represented by the ordinary z. This is a pity, because, as all know who are familiar with our MSS. of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this figure ȝ took not unfrequently the place of ð (th); and on this account it is a character which ought to be scrupulously preserved in editing. Berȝ then was probably pronounced berth, or possibly with a little more of the sibilant than is now found in the latter. How easily the sibilant and the th run into one another may be seen by the third person singular of our present Indicative:
| saith | says. | |
| doth | does. | |
| hopeth | hopes. |
J. E.
Oxford, August 2. 1851.
Suicides buried in Cross-roads (Vol. iv., p. 116.).
—P. M. M. makes inquiry respecting a practice formerly observed of burying murderers in cross-roads. I have often heard that suicides were formerly interred in such places, and that a stake used to be driven through the body. I know of two places in the neighbourhood of Boston in Lincolnshire, where such burials are stated to have taken place. One of these is about a mile and a half south of Boston, on what is called the low road to Freiston; a very ancient hawthorn tree marks the spot, and the tree itself is said to have sprung from the stake which was driven through the body of the self-murderer. The tradition was told me sixty years since, and the interment was then said to have occurred a hundred years ago; the suicide's name was at that time traditionally remembered, and was told to me, but I cannot recall it. The tree exhibits marks of great age, and is preserved with care; it still bears "may," as the flower of the whitethorn is called, and haws in their season.
The second grave (as it is reported) of this kind is on the high road from Boston to Wainfleet, at the intersection of a road leading to Butterwick, at a place called Spittal Hill; near the site of the ancient hospital or infirmary, which was attached to the Priory of St. James at Freiston. This spot is famous in the traditions of the neighbourhood as the scene of the appearance of a sprite or hobgoblin, called the "Spittal Hill TUT;" which takes, in the language of the district, the shape of a SHAG foal, and is said to be connected with the history of the suicide buried there.
TUT is a very general term applied in Lincolnshire to any fancied supernatural appearance. Children are frightened by being told of Tom Tut; and persons in a state of panic, or unreasonable trepidation, are said to be Tut-gotten.
P. T.
Stoke Newington, Aug. 30.
A Sword-blade Note (Vol. iv., p. 176.).
—The sword-blade note, to which R. J. refers, was doubtless a note of the Sword-blade Company, which was intimately connected with the South Sea Company. In the narrative respecting the latter company, given in The Historical Register for 1720, is an account of a conference between the South Sea Directors and those of the Bank of England: therein is the following passage:
"And when it was urg'd that the Sword Blade Company should come into the Treaty; By no means, reply'd Sir Gilbert [Heathcote]; for if the South Sea Company be wedded to the Bank, he ought not to be allow'd to keep a Mistress. The Event show'd that the Bank acted with their usual Prudence, in not admitting the Sword Blade Company into a Partnership."—Historical Register for 1720, p. 368.
At p. 377. of the same work it is stated, that on the 24th of September the Sword-blade Company, "who hitherto had been the chief cash keepers to the South Sea Company," stopped payment, "being almost drain'd of their ready money."
Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to elucidate the rise, transactions, and "winding up" of the Sword-blade Company.
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge, Sept. 6. 1851.
Domesday Book of Scotland (Vol. iv., p. 7.).
—Your correspondent ABERDONIENSIS is informed that what he is in quest of was published by the "Bannatyne Club," under the name of the "Ragman Rolls," in 1834, 4to. It is entitled, Instrumenta Publica sive Processus super Fidelitatibus et Homagiis Scotorum Domino Regi Angliæ factis, A.D. M.CC.XCI.—M.CC.XCVI.
"The documents contained in this volume have not been selected in the view of reviving or illustrating the ancient National Controversy as to the feudal dependence of Scotland on the English Crown. It has been long known that in these Records may be found the largest and most authentic enumerations now extant of the Nobility, Barons, Landholders and Burgesses, as well as of the Clergy of Scotland, prior to the fourteenth century. No part of the public Records of Scotland prior to that era has been preserved, and whatever may have been their fate, certain it is, that to these English Records of our temporary national degradation, are we now indebted for the only genuine Statistical Notices of the Kingdom towards the close of the thirteenth century."
*** "This singular document, so often quoted and referred to, was never printed in extenso."
T. G. S.
Edinburgh.
Dole-bank (Vol. iv., p. 162.).
—In processions on Holy Thursday, it was usual to deal cakes and bread to the children and the poor of the parish at boundary-banks, that they might be duly remembered. Hence the name.
R. S. H.
Morwenstow.
The Letter "V" (Vol. iv., p. 164.).
—If S. S. will turn again to my remarks on this letter, he will see that I did not state that Tiverton was ever pronounced Terton. I accede to what he has said of Twiverton; Devonshire was inadvertently written for Somersetshire. With regard to the observations of A. N. (p. 162.), he will find those remarks were confined to the v between two vowels, i.e. without any other consonant intervening; and, therefore, other forms of contraction did not fall within the scope of them. I refrained from adverting to any such words as Elvedon and Kelvedon (pronounced respectively Eldon and Keldon), because the abbreviation of these may be referable to another cause. In passing I would mention that I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the word dool, about which he inquires, is no other than the Ang.-Sax. dāl, a division, from daelan, to divide; and whence our words deal and dole. But to return to the letter v, if MR. SINGER be correct as to devenisch in the MS. of the Hermit of Hampole being written for Danish (p. 159.), it seems an example of the peculiar use of this letter to which I have invited attention, for the writer hardly intended it to be pronounced as three syllables if he meant Danish. However, if that MS. be a transcript, may not the supposed v have been originally an n, which was first mis-read u, and then copied as a v?
W. S. W.
Cardinal Wolsey (Vol. iv., p. 176.).
—The following anecdote, taken from a common-place book of Sir Roger Wilbraham, who was Master of the Requests in the time of Queen Elizabeth, appears to have some bearing on the subject referred to in the page of your publication which I have quoted above:—
"Cooke, attorney, at diner Whitsunday [1] ista protulit.
"Wolsey, a prelate, was flagrante crimine taken in fornication by Sr Anthony Pagett of ye West, and put in ye stokes. After being made Cardinall, Sr Anthony sett up his armes on ye middle Temple gate: ye Cardinall passing in pontificalibus, and spying his owne armes, asked who sett them up. Answare was made yt ye said Mr. Pagett. He smiled saying, he is now well reclaymed; for wher before he saw him in disgrace, now he honoured him."
[1] This was probably in 1598.
W. L.
Nervous (Vol. iv., p. 7.).
—Nervous has unquestionably the double meaning assigned to it in MR. BANNEL'S Query. The propriety of the English practice, in this respect, may be doubted. Nervous is correctly equivalent to Lat. nervosus; Fr. nerveux, strong, vigorous. In the sense of nervous weakness, or, perhaps more correctly, nervine weakness, the word should probably be nervish, analogous to qualmish, squeamish, aguish, feverish, &c. In Scotland, though the English may regard it as a vulgarism, I have heard the word used in this form.
F. S. Q.
Coleridge's Essays on Beauty (Vol. iv., p. 175.).
—I have copies of the Essays referred to. They were republished about 1836 in Fraser's Literary Chronicle.
MORTIMER COLLINS.
Guernsey.
"Nao" or "Naw," a Ship (Vol. iv., p. 28.).
—I have already answered GOMER upon the imaginary word naw, a ship: I beg now to remark on MR. FENTON'S nav. If nav was a ship at all, I am at a loss to know why it should be "a much older term." It would probably be subsequent to the introduction of the Latin noun, which it docks of its final is. The word or name is quoted from a Triad, the ninety-seventh of that series which contains the mention of Llewelyn ap Griffith, the last prince of Wales; and what makes it "one of the oldest" Triads, I have no idea. Nor do I know what ascertains the date of any of them; or removes the date of the composition of any one of them beyond the middle ages.
But Nevydd is no very uncommon proper name of men and women, derived from nev, heaven; and nav neivion is simply "lord of lords." It forms the plural like mab, meibion, and march, meirchion. Mr. Walters gives nav under no words but lord. David ap Gwelyn either mentions the navigation of the lords, the Trojan chieftains, to Britain; or else that of Nevydd Nav Neivion, cutting short his title. But the former is the plain sense of the thing. If MR. FENTON will only turn to Owen's Dictionary (from which naw, a ship, is very properly excluded) he will there find the quotation from Gwalchmai; in which the three Persons of the Trinity are styled the Undonion Neivion, "harmonizing or consentaneous Lords." He will scarcely make bold to turn them into ships.
A. N.
Unde derivatur Stonehenge (Vol. iv., p. 57.).
—Your correspondent P. P. proposes to interpret this word, horse-stones, from hengst, the Saxon for a horse; and to understand thereby large stones, as the words horse-chesnut, horse-daisy, horse-mushroom, &c., mean large ones. But, if he had duly considered the arguments contained in Mr. Herbert's Cyclops Christianus, pp. 162-4., he would have seen the necessity of showing, that in Anglo-Saxon and English the description can follow, in composition, the thing described; which it seems it can do in neither. In support of his stone-horse, he should have produced a chesnut-horse in the vegetable sense; a daisy-horse, or a mushroom-horse. Till he does that, the grammatical canon appealed to by that author, will remain in as full force against the stone-horse as against the stone-hanging.
E. A. M.
Nick Nack (Vol. iii., p. 179.).
—A rude species of music very common amongst the boys in Sheffield, called by them nick-a-nacks. It is made by two pieces of bone, sometimes two pieces of wood, placed between the fingers, and beaten in time by a rapid motion of the hand and fingers. It is one of the periodical amusements of the boys going along the streets.
"And with his right drew forth a truncheon of a white ox rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form; one of black Eben, and the other of incarnation Brazile; and put them betwixt the fingers of that hand, in good symmetry. Then knocking them together, made such a noise, as the lepers of Britany use to do with their clappering clickets; yet better resounding, and far more harmonious."—Rabelais, book ii. c. 19.
H. J.
Meaning of Carfax (Vol. iii., p. 508.).
—E. J. S. says "Carfoix reminds me of Carfax in Oxford. Are the names akin to each other?" When at Oxford I used to hear that Carfax was properly Quarfax, a contraction for quatuor facies, four faces. The church, it will be remembered, looks one way to High Street, another to Queen Street, a third to the Cornmarket, and the fourth to St. Aldates's.
H. T. G.
Hand giving the Benediction (Vol. iii., p. 477.).
—Rabbi Bechai tells us of the solemn blessing in Numbers vi. 25, 26, 27., in which the name Jehovah is thrice repeated, that, when the high priest pronounced it on the people, "elevatione manuum sic digitos composuit ut TRIADA exprimerent."
W. FRASER.
Unlucky for Pregnant Women to take an Oath (Vol. iv., p. 151.).
—I beg to inform COWGILL that Irishwomen of the lower order almost invariably refuse to be sworn while pregnant. Having frequently had to administer oaths to heads of families applying for relief during the famine in Ireland in 1847-8-9, I can speak with certainty as to the fact, though I am unable to account for the origin of the superstition.
BARTANUS.
Dublin.
Borough-English (Vol. iv., p. 133.).
—Burgh or Borough-English is a custom appendant to ancient boroughs, such as existed in the days of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, and are contained in the Book of Domesday. Taylor, in his History of Gavelkind, p. 102., states, that in the villages round the city of Hereford, the lands are all held in the tenure of Borough-English. There appears also to be a customary descent of lands and tenements in some places called Borow-English, as in Edmunton: vid. Kitchin of Courts, fol. 102. The custom of Borough-English, like that of gavelkind, and those of London and York, is still extant; and although it may have been in a great measure superseded by deed or will, yet, doubtless, instances occur in the present day of its vitality and consequent operation.
FRANCISCUS.
Date of a Charter (Vol. iv., p. 152.).
—I suspect that the charter to which MR. HAND refers, is one of the time of Henry II., and not of Henry III. The latter sent no daughter to Sicily; but Joan, the daughter of the former, was married to William, king of Sicily, in the year 1176, 22 Henry II. In the Great Roll of that year (Rot. 13 b.) are entries of payments for hangings in the king's chamber on that occasion, and of fifty marks given to Walter de Constantiis, Archdeacon of Oxford, for entertaining the Sicilian ambassadors. See Madox's Exchequer, i. 367., who also in p. 18. refers to Hoveden, P. 2. p. 548. This may perhaps assist in the discovery of the precise date, which I cannot at present fix.
Φ.