—The third volume of Tytler's Lives of Scottish Worthies (No. 37. of the Family Library) contains a series of antiquarian illustrations, of which the last is devoted to "Ancient Scottish Games and Amusements." The author refers particularly to the MS. accounts of the Lord High Treasurer during the reign of King James IV. (1488-1513), in which, however, there appears to be no notice of the "roaring game." The origin of this favourite amusement is certainly involved in mystery, and I have repeatedly failed in my endeavours to ascertain the meaning of the name by which the game is known. On consulting the abridgment of Jamieson's Dictionary for the derivation, I find the following:—
"Perhaps from Teut. krollen, krull-en, sinuare, flectere, whence E. curl; as the great art of the game is to make the stones bend or curve in towards the mark, when it is so blocked up that they cannot be directed in a straight line."
E. N.
Ancient Trees (Vol. iv., pp. 401. &c.).
—Notwithstanding the assertion of Dr. Johnson, many fine specimens of timber have long existed to the north of the Tweed. At p. 20. of the Edinburgh Antiquarian Magazine (Edin. 1848) will be found a "List of Scottish Trees, of remarkable magnitude, as they existed in 1812," including numerous examples of the oak, larch, ash, elm, beech, silver fir, Scots fir, sycamore, chesnut, black poplar, and yew. One of the largest in the catalogue is the great yew at Fortingal, in Perthshire, measured by the Hon. Judge Barrington in 1768, when its circumference was no less than fifty-two feet.
E. N.
Paring the Nails, &c. (Vol. v., pp. 142. &c.).—
"Now no superfluity of our food, or in general no excrementitious substance, is looked upon by them (the Egyptian priests) as pure and clean; such, however, are all kinds of wool and down, our hair and our nails. It would be the highest absurdity therefore for those who, whilst they are in a course of purification, are at so much pains to take off the hair from every part of their own bodies, at the same time to cloath themselves with that of other animals. So when we are told by Hesiod 'not to pare our nails, whilst we are present at the festivals of the Gods,' we ought so to understand him as if he designed hereby to inculcate that purity with which we ought to come prepared, before we enter upon any religious duty, that we have not to make ourselves clean, whilst we ought to be occupied in attending to the solemnity itself."—Plutarch's Treatise of Isis and Osiris, translated by Squire, p. 5. 1744.
This note will show the great antiquity of these nail-paring and hair-cutting superstitions. What is there does not come from Egypt?
A. HOLT WHITE.