292
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL APRIL 10, im.
These facts seem to point to the con-
clusion that though the particle le may
have been inserted on the analogy of other
place-names of a similar form, it is in this
instance of quite late introduction. It
may also be pointed out that if we accept
the theory that it existed in the origina"
form of the word, we must assume that
between 1400, the date of Bishop Braybroke's
licence to build the new church, and 1461,
when the manor is referred to as " Tyburne
alias Maribon'e," the new church of St.
Mary had become popularly known as " St.
Mary le bourne," and that the preposition
had been dropped and the word " bourn "
changed to boune or bonne. These changes
seem somewhat too rapid to have taken place
in sixty years.
I would further suggest that it is by no means certain that the final syllable denotes a burn or brook. If it did so, we should expect to find it always, at least in the earlier examples, in the form burn or bourn, whereas we find it frequently spelt without the r. The word bourn, however, in the sense of boundary or limit, is constantly confused with the word bound having the same signification, if, indeed, it is not of the same origin. The following forms of the latter word are given in the ' N.E.D.,' bunne, boune (?), bourne, bond, bounde, bownd, bound ; and it will be seen that such forms as Marybourne and Marybone are used indifferently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that the forms Maryboune and Marybound also occur. It does not, therefore, seem to me improbable that the final syllable in this name is bourn or bound in the sense of " limit," and this derivation receives some corroboration in the reference in Bishop Braybroke's licence to the new chapel " infra fines et limites dicte parochie."
H. A. HAKBEN.
[A note by PROF. SKEAT on ' " Bourne " in Place-Names ' will be printed in an early number.]
" PTTRFLY " (10 S. xi. 248). When I was a boy, in the fifties and early sixties, I frequently heard elderly people (chiefly of Stirlingshire birth) use the words " pur- fly " and " pur fled " in reference to very stout people who were puffed out and scatn of breath. Doubtless Carlyle had heard them too, in the same sense, in his own boyhood's days. Jamieson gives " purfled, purfillit, short-winded, specially in conse- quence of being too lusty. S." " Lusty " was undoubtedly used in Scotland, and doubtless still is, in the sense of " stout, or excessively fat. Oddly enough, Jamieson,
who uses it in that sense in the above quota-
tion, gives two meanings of a quite different
kind under the word itself : (1) " Beautiful.,
handsome, elegant," and (2) " pleasant,
delightful," making no mention of the
" purfled " sense. Wright's ' English Dia-
lect Dictionary ' merely quotes Jamieson
for " purfled." G.
Glasgow.
" Purfled " in heraldry, when applied to armour, means that the rims and studs are of a different metal. Applied to a "face of bruised honeycomb," " purfly " probably means blotchy. A. T. M.
CHEESE FOB LADIES (10 S. xi. 229). The following is taken from ' The Visits of Eliza- beth,' bv Elinor Glyn (first published November, 1900), p. 224 :
" I was glad to have a nice piece of cheese. All the time I was with Godmamma I was not allowed to, as it isn't considered proper for girls there, and when I asked Victorine why one day, she told me it gave ideas, and was too exciting, whatever that could mean. So at the ' Red Lion ' I just had two helpings to see, as this is the first chance I have had, as you don't care for cheese at home. But nothing happened, I did not feel at all excited, so it must be because they are French. Mustn't it ? "
Elizabeth is writing to her mother from an English country house, and is commenting on the badness of food at English country hotels, compared with that at such places in France. " Godmamma " is Madame de Croixmare, at whose chateau she has been staying. Victorine, daughter of Madame de Croixmare, is a jeune file of twenty-two. ROBERT PIERPOINT.
HERALDRY IN FROISSART : " PILLOW " r ARMS OF DOUGLAS (10 S. x. 369, 452). " Pillows," as referred to in the instance given by MR. QTJILLIN from Froissart's ' Chronicles/' are perhaps better known in heraldry as " cushions." They are thus described in Bout ell (' Heraldry, Historical and Popular ' (1864), p. 43 :
" Cushion or Pillow (Oreiller) : usually of a square form, with a tassel at each corner. The ' cushions ' represented beneath the heads of mediaeval effigies are often richly diapered, and it is common for the upper of two cushions to be set lozenge-wise upon the lower."
Boutell shows this in plate xv. on p. 96 from the De Bohun brass at Westminster.
A later well-known writer, Dr. Woodward, n his ' Heraldry, English and Foreign ' 1896), vol. i. p. 393, says :
" Cushions have become important in the leraldry of Scotland from being, as far back as he thirteenth century, the bearings of the coat
