Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/282

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230
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[10ᵗʰ S. I. March 1904.

wall, for, primâ facie, the word seems to mean horn field, or cape field.

I might have referred to other personal names in Mr. Bateman's list of Derbyshire lows. For instance, Yarns-low is Earnes-hlāw, the burial-mound of Earn. These are not "family names," as Dr. Brushfield supposes, but personal names. In the 'Crawford Charters,' p. 70, Prof. Napier and Mr. Stevenson say that hlāw "is almost in variably joined with a personal name, no doubt recording the person buried therein." The Derbyshire Baslow, Domesday Basse-lau, mentioned by Dr. Brushfield, contains the A.-S. man's name Bassa, gen. Bassan, occurring once in Mr. Searle's 'Onomasticon,' and once latinized as Bassus. According to Sievers-Cook, 'Grammar of Old English,' 276n., "final -n is discarded in Northumbrian," so that Basse may here stand for Bassen, i.e., Bassan, the meaning of the whole word being Bassa's burial-mound. Mr. Searle (p. 531) gives Tunna cæstir for Tunnan cæstir. S. O. Addy.




The Wreck of the Wager (10ᵗʰ S. i. 201).—In my note on this subject I omitted to say that Capt. Cheap died in 1752, aged fifty-five.

One would like to know more about that interesting character Dr. Patrick Gedd (or Geddes?), the Scotch physician at Santiago, who, in his own house there, entertained for a long time, and with great hospitality, Cheap, Hamilton, Byron, and Campbell ('Narrative,' pp. 215, 235). He is said to have been much esteemed by the Spaniards for his professional abilities and humane disposition. "Don Patricio Gedd," a worthy "Scot abroad," was perhaps related to the Edinburgh goldsmith of stereotyping fame. W. S.


Football on Shrove Tuesday (10ᵗʰ S. i. 127, 194).—G. W. need not be under any apprehension that the "Worki'ton fuitba' play" has ceased. With each recurring Easter Tuesday there go from all parts of Cumberland excursion trains carrying thousands of spectators to the Cloffocks, where the game is played, but on Good Friday there is a kind of trial game, in which the youngsters are the contestants. How or when this ancient custom originated no one can say, there being no local records to throw light upon it. The earliest reference I have been able to find is in the Cumberland Pacquet of Tuesday 25 April, 1797:—

"The Workington annual football match, on Easter Tuesday, was won by the seamen. After that was decided, a belt was produced, to be wrestled for, when no less than forty competitors appeared. After a hard struggle the prize was won by Isaac Brisco, a man about fifty years of age."

Noting from the communication by Mr. Everard Home Coleman that no reference to Workington football is contained in 'N. & Q.,' I may perhaps be permitted to supplement the necessarily brief account given in my 'Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland," and partly quoted by Mr. MacMichael. The goals are about a mile apart, one being the inner side of Workington Hall Park wall, and the other a capstan at the bottom of the harbour. Between these points are the quays, the parish church, two lines of railway (each cutting right across the field of play), and numerous foundries and other places of business. On the south lies the town, gradually rising to the park, and on the north the swift-flowing river Derwent. The teams are designated respectively "Uppies" and "Downies," and are supposed to consist, the first of colliers, ironworkers, and countrymen, and the "Downies" of sailors, dock labourers, and workmen from the quaysides. As a matter of fact, any one can join in the play—the more the merrier—and it is no unusual thing to see a couple of hundred men and youths engaged in the fray, but on which side they were fighting comparatively few could say. There is only one rule—to get it by any possible means, fair or unfair, either over the park wall or on to the capstan on the quay. The players may go on to the streets (all business is suspended for the afternoon) in order to circumvent their opponents. On the other hand, the chances are that if a man is found with the ball in his possession when near the river he will be tossed into the stream and held there until he relinquishes his hold. Such a game is, of course, dangerous, and within the last forty years more than one life has been lost in this way. The ball, it should be remarked, is not of the kind ordinarily used in football, but is harder and much smaller; it is made specially for each match. For very many years an old man named Dalgleish threw off the ball from a footbridge crossing a dirty sewer-like beck which runs through the Cloffocks, and on his death he was succeeded by his son. The struggle is always fierce, as may be supposed under the circumstances, and the players, after a few tumbles in the beck, are almost unrecognizable, while their shirts are torn to ribbons. There is nothing edifying in the exhibition, though plenty of rough humour may be found. Sometimes the game lasts from 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon till late at night. Should