Meaning of "Harissers."—It is customary in the county of Dorset, after carrying a field of corn, to leave behind a sheaf, to intimate to the rest of the parish that the families of those who reaped the field are to have the first lease. After these gleaners have finished, the sheaf is removed, and other parties are admitted, called "barissers." I have been told that the real title is "arishers," from "arista." I should feel obliged if any of your correspondents could inform me whether this name is known in any other county, and what is the derivation of the word.
CLERICUS RUSTICUS.
Ringelbergius—Drinking to Excess.—Ringelbergius, in the notes to his treatise De Ratione Studii, speaking of great drinkers, has this passage:
"Eos qui magnos crateras haustu uno siccare possunt, qui sic crassum illud et porosum corpus vino implent, ut per cutem humor erumpat (nam tum se satis inquiunt potasse, cùm, positis quinque super mensam digitis, quod ipse aliquando vidi, totidem guttæ excidunt) laudant; hos viros esse et homines dicunt."
He says that he himself has seen this. Does any reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" know of any other author who says that he has seen such an exhibition? Or can Ringelbergius's assertion be confirmed from any source?
J.S.W.
Stockwell, Oct. 15.
Langue Pandras.—In the Life of Chaucer prefixed to the Aldine edition of his poetical works, there is published, for the first time, "a very interesting ballad," "addressed to him by Eustache Deschamps, a contemporary French poet," of which I beg leave to quote the first stanza, in order to give me the opportunity of inquiring the meaning of "la langue Pandras," in the ninth line:
"O Socrates, pleins de philosophie,
Seneque en moeurs et angles en pratique,