Cranmore.
Largesse.—I heard this old word used the other day in Northamptonshire, by a servant who was leaving his employer, and who called upon one of his master's tradesmen to ask him for largisse, as he termed it. Certainly the peasants have preserved and handed down to the present time a vast number of old words, customs, and legends. It proves how much they owe to oral tuition.
A. B.
Brogue and Fetch.—There are a certain set of words which have become naturalised in English, by those who speak it in Ireland; as, amadan, a fool; brogue, a shoe (Ir. brog); palaver, fine speaking, soft talk (Ir. pi-labhradh). These are all Irish words; but there are others which are not English, and yet it is hard to make them out Irish. Brogue, meaning a broad Irish accent, is an instance; fetch is another:
"In Ireland (says Mr. Banim) a fetch is the supernatural fac-simile of some individual, which comes to assure to its original [or his friend or relative] a happy longevity or immediate dissolution. If seen in the morning, the one event is predicted; if in the evening, the other."
Taibhse (pr. thaivshe) is the Irish word, and perhaps fetch might be derived from it by a sort of metathesis.
Eirionnach.
Derivation of "Caul."—
"Guianerius, cap. 36., De Ægritud. Matr., speaks of a silly, jealous fellow, that, seeing his child new born, included in a kell (meaning a caul), thought sure a Franciscan, that used to come to his house, was the father of it, it was so like the friar's cowl, and thereupon threatened the friar to kill him!"—Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 3.
By this may we judge that caul and cowl are cognate? Coif (Martial.), in Latin Reticulum; whence a lady's reticule.