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    Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850
    Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850
    Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850

    By Various Various

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850

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      Notes and Queries, Number 61, December 28, 1850 - Various Various

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December

      28, 1850, by Various

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850

      A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists,

      Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc.

      Author: Various

      Release Date: July 31, 2005 [EBook #16404]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES AND QUERIES ***

      Produced by The Internet Library of Early Journals; Jon

      Ingram, Patricia A Benoy, and the Online Distributed

      Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Transcriber's Notes:

      This text contains accented Greek. You may need to change fonts in order to view the accented Greek characters.

      Two images of Gothic font and an image of the capitulum from the original text have been included in the Errata section.

      NOTES AND QUERIES:

      A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

      When found, make a note of.—Captain Cuttle.

      CONTENTS.

      Notes:— Page

      Illustrations of Scottish Ballads, by Richard John King 505

      The Red Hand—The Holt Family—Vincent Family 506

      Vondel's Lucifer, by Janus Dousa 507

      A Myth of Midridge 509

      Folk Lore Miscellanies:—St. Thomas's Day—Black

      Doll at Old Store-shops—Snake Charming—Mice

      as a Medicine—Many Nits, many Pits—Swans

      hatched during Thunder—Snakes—Pixies or Piskies

      —Straw Necklaces—Breaking Judas' Bones 509

      Local Rhymes and Proverbs of Devonshire 511

      A Christmas Carol 513

      A Note for little Boys 513

      Similarity of Traditions 513

      Pixey Legends 514

      The Pool of the Black Hound 515

      Popular Rhymes 515

      Minor Notes:—Passilodion and Berafrynde—

      Inscription on an Alms-dish—The Use of the French

      Word savez—Job's Luck—The Assassination of

      Mountfort in For folk Street, Strand—The Oldenburgh

      Horn—Curious Custom—Kite—Epitaph on

      John Randal—Playing Cards 515

      Queries:—

      Dragons: their Origin 517

      John Sanderson, or the Cushion Dance; and Bab at the

      Bowster 517

      Did Bunyan know Hobbes? by J.H. Friswell 518

      Minor Queries:—Boiling to Death—Meaning of

      Mocker—Away, let nought to love displeasing

      —Baron Münchausen—"Sing Tantararara Rogues

      all, &c.—Meaning of Cauking" 519

      Replies:—

      The Wise Men of Gotham, by J.B. Colman 520

      Replies to Minor Queries:—Master John Shorne—

      Antiquity of Smoking—Meaning of the Word

      Thwaites—Thomas Rogers of Horninger—Earl

      of Roscommon—Parse—The Meaning of Version

      —First Paper-mill in England—Torn by Horses

      —Vineyards—Cardinal—Weights for Weighing

      Coins—Umbrella—Croziers and Pastoral Staves 520

      Miscellaneous:—

      Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 523

      Notices to Correspondents 524

      Advertisements 524

      NOTES.

      ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCOTTISH BALLADS.

      In the ballad of Annan Water (Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii.) is the following verse:—

      "O he has pour'd aff his dapperpy coat,

      The silver buttons glanced bonny;

      The waistcoat bursted aff his breast,

      He was sae full of melancholy."

      A very unexpected effect of sorrow, but one that does not seem to be unprecedented. A plague of sighing and grief, says Falstaff. It blows a man up like a bladder.

      A remarkable illustration of Falstaff's assertion, and of the Scottish ballad, is to be found in this Saga of Egil Skallagrimson. Bodvar, the son of Egil, was wrecked on the coast of Iceland. His body was thrown up by the waves near Einarsness, where Egil found it, and buried it in the tomb of his father Skallagrim. The Saga continues thus:—

      After that, Egil rode home to Borgar; and when he came there, he went straightway into the locked chamber where he was wont to sleep; and there he laid him down, and shot forth the bolt. No man dared speak a word to him. And thus it is said that Egil was clad when he laid Bodvar in the tomb. His hose were bound fast about his legs, and he had on a red linen kirtle, narrow above, and tied with strings at the sides. And men say that his body swelled so greatly that his kirtle burst from off him, and so did his hose.—P. 602.

      It is well known that the subjects of many ballads are common to Scotland, and to the countries of Northern Europe. Thus, the fine old Douglas Tragedy, the scene of which is pointed out at Blackhouse Tower, on the Yarrow, is equally localised in Denmark:

      Seven large stones, says Sir Walter, erected upon the neighbouring heights of Blackhouse, are shown as marking the spot where the seven brethren were slain; and the Douglas Burn is avowed to have been the stream at which the lovers stopped to drink; so minute is tradition in ascertaining, the scene of a tragical tale, which, considering, the rude state of former times, had probably foundation in some real event.

      The corresponding Danish ballad, however, that of Ribolt and Guldborg, which has been translated by Mr. Jamieson, is not less minute in pointing out the scene of action. The origin of ballads, which are thus widely spread, must probably be sought in very high antiquity; and we cannot wonder if we find them undergoing considerable change in the passage from one country to another. At least the Douglas Tragedy betrays one very singular mark of having lost something of the original.

      In Ribolt and Guldborg, when the lady's brothers have all but overtaken the fugitives, the knight addresses her thus:

      "Light down, Guldborg, my lady dear,

      And hald our steeds lay the renyes here.

      And e'en sae be that ye see me fa'

      Be sure that ye never upon me ca';

      And e'en sae be that ye see me bleed,

      Be sure that ye name na' me till dead."

      Ribolt kills her father and her two eldest brothers, and then Guldborg can no longer restrain herself:

      "Hald, hald, my Ribolt, dearest mine,

      Now belt thy brand, for its 'mair nor time.

      My youngest brother ye spare, O spare,

      To my mither the dowie news to bear."

      But she has broken her lover's mysterious caution, and he is mortally wounded in consequence:

      "When Ribolt's name she named that stound,

      'Twas then that he gat his deadly wound."

      In the Scottish ballad, no such caution is given; nor is the lady's calling on her lover's name at all alluded to as being the cause of his death. It is so, however, as in the Danish version:

      "She held his steed in her milk-white hand,

      And never shed one tear,

      Until that she saw her seven brethren fa',

      And her father hard fighting, who loved her so dear.

      "O hold your hand, Lord William, she said,

      For your strokes they are wondrous sair;

      True lovers I can get many a ane,

      But a father I can never get mair."

      There is no note in the Kæmpe Viser, says Mr. Jamieson, on this subject; nor does he attempt to explain it himself. It has, however, a clear reference to a very curious Northern superstition.

      Thorkelin, in the essay on the Berserkir, appended to

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