—Beocera-ig, i.e. the bee-keeper's island, was one of the small islets adjacent to the larger one, Avallon, whereon the Abbey of Glastonbury stood. Glastonbury was early resorted to by Irish devotees; St. Patrick and St. Bridget necessarily resided there. Concerning Beocherie or Bekery, we are told that there "olim sancta Brigida perhendinavit" (MS. Ashmol. 790, quoted in the Monasticon, vol. i. p. 22.). This accounts for the name Parva Hibernia. Beocera-gent, in charter 652, is the name of some landmark or boundary. There can be little doubt that we should read beocera-geat, i.e. bee-keeper's gate, as suggested by Mr. Kemble in the preface to the third vol. of Codex Dipl. p. xxvi. The duties and rights of the beocere, beo-ceorl, or bocherus, are described in the "Rectitudines singularum personarum," Thorpe's Anc. Laws, vol. i. p. 434.
C. W. G.
Ruffles, when worn (Vol. v., pp. 12. 139.).
—Planché, in his History of British Costume, says that during the reign of Henry VIII., "the sleeves were ruffed, or ruffled at the hand, as we perceive in the portrait of Henry. They were not added to the shirt till the next century."
R. S. F.
Perth.
Long Meg of Westminster (Vol. ii., pp. 131. 172.; Vol. v., p. 133.).
—As an instance of this title being applied (as Fuller has it) "to persons very tall," I subjoin the following notice of a death, which appeared in a newspaper of September, 1769:
"At London, Peter Branan, aged 104. He was six feet six inches high, and was commonly called Long Meg of Westminster. He had been a soldier from eighteen years of age."
This notice is extracted in the Edinburgh Antiquarian Magazine, but without mentioning the quarter from which it was taken.