COWGILL.
The Tanthony.—Will your correspondent ARUN permit one to refer him to an authority for the use of the word "Tanton" for St. Anthony? An hospital in York, dedicated to St. Anthony, after the dissolution came into the possession of a gild or fraternity of a master and eight keepers, who were commonly called "Tanton Pigs." Vide Drake's Eboracum, p. 315.
Δ.
Tanthony Bell at Kimbolton.—"Tanthony" is from St. Anthony. In Hampshire the small pig of the litter (in Essex called "the cad") is, or once was, called "the Tanthony pig." Pigs were especially under this saint's care. The ensign of the order of St. Anthony of Hainault was a collar of gold made like a hermit's girdle; at the centre thereof hung a crutch and a small bell of gold. St. Anthony is styled, among his numerous titles, "Membrorum restitutor," and "Dæmonis fugator:" hence the bell.
"The Egyptians have none but wooden bells, except one brought by the Franks into the monastery of St. Anthony."—Rees' Cyclopædia, art. Bell.
I hope ARUN will be satisfied with this connexion of St. Anthony with the pig, the crutch, and the bell.
"The staff" in the figure of the saint at Merthyr is, I should think, a crutch.
"The custom of making particular saints tutelars and protectors of one or another species of cattle is still kept up in Spain and other places. They pray to the tutelar when the beast is sick. Thus St. Anthony is for hogs, and we call a poor starved creature a Tantony pig."—Salmon's History of Hertfordshire, 1728.
A. HOLT WHITE.
May I venture to observe, in confirmation of ARUN'S suggestion as to the origin of this term, that the bell appears to have been a constant attribute of St. Anthony, although I have tried in vain to discover any allusion to it in his legend?