"The table was abundantly spread with substantial fare, but the Squire made his supper of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk, with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for Christmas Eve."
W. H. Cotton.
Etymology of Pearl (Vol. vi., p. 578.; Vol. vii., p. 18.).—Sir Emerson Tennent inquires as to the antiquity of the word pearl in the English language. Pærl occurs in Anglo-Saxon (Bosworth in v.), and corresponding forms are found in the Scandinavian languages, as well as in the Welsh and Irish. The old German form of the word is berille. Richardson in v. quotes an instance of the adjective pearled from Gower, who belongs to the fourteenth century. The use of union for pearl, cited by Sir E. Tennent from Burton, is a learned application of the word, and never was popular in our language.
I may add that Muratori inserts the word perla in the Italian Glossary, in his 33rd Dissertation on Italian Mediæval Antiquities. He believes the origin of the word to be Teutonic, but throws no light on the subject. It appears from Halliwell's Arch. and Prov. Dictionary, that white spots in the eyes were anciently called pearls. M‘Culloch, Commercial Dictionary in v., particularly speaks of the pear-shaped form of the pearl; and, on the whole, the supposition that perula is equivalent to pear-ling, seems the most probable.
L.
Folkestone (Vol. vi., p. 507.).—Various etymologies have been given with a view of arriving at the right one for this town. I have to inform you that the places of that part of Kent where Folkeston, so properly spelt on the seal of the ancient priory, is situated, receive their etymologies from local or geological distinctions. Folkeston forms no exception to the general rule. The soil consists of a most beautiful yellow sand, such as the
Romans distinguished by the word Fulvus. This the Saxons contracted into Fulk, which word has become a family prenomen, as in Fulke-Greville, Fulk-Brooke; in other terms, the yellow Greville or yellow Brook; and Folkeston is nothing more than the yellow town, so called from the nature of the soil on which it is built.
S.
The Curfew Bell (Vol. vi., p. 53.).—
"During the last 700 years, the curfew bell has been regularly tolled in the town of Sandwich: but now it is said it is to be discontinued, in consequence of the corporation funds being at so low an ebb as not to allow of the payment of the paltry sum of some 4l. or 5l. per annum."—Kentish Observer.