Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/239

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10 s. x. SEPT. 5,


NOTES AND QUERIES.


195


being caused when a London visitor inquirec his way to " Tin-ta-gel," with the g hard.

Tennyson's line in ' The Coming o Arthur,'

Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, was read in the locality with the pronuncia tion I have given ; but there is the authority of another poet on the other side, as i very positively put by Mr. Herbert Paul in his monograph on Matthew Arnold ir the " English Men of Letters " series it being observed :

" It is a curious fact that in the first edition o Tristram and Iseult ' the place of King Marc' court was made a dactyl. It runs

Where the prince whom she must wed

Keeps his court in Tyntagel.

It is, of course, Tyntagel, and in later editions th< tsecond line became

Dwells on proud Tyntagel's hill. In every other line where the name occurs, a sirnila: change was made." P. 37.

ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

Hawker, in his poem ' The Silent Tower of Bottreau,' spells the name " Tintadgel,' jid the local pronunciation agrees with this. If, however, the name is of Celtic origin, as apparently it is, the g must surely have been hard at first. C. C. B.

tt On the Union Castle boat Tintagel Castle " Tintajel " (g pronounced soft) is de rigueur.

F. S. S.

This name is pronounced Tin-taj-el.

P. JENNINGS. St. Day, Scorrier, Cornwall.

A Cornish girl once told me that Tintagel is pronounced Tintag'gle. T. M. W.

[T. F. D. also refers to Matthew Arnold.]

DEATH AFTER LYING (10 S. x. 109, 157).

A correspondent having kindly sent me the inscription on the Market Cross, Devizes, it may be well to supplement MR. GILLMAN'S reply by printing the whole in ' N. & Q.' :

" The Mayor and Corporation of Devizes avail themselves of the stability of this building to transmit to future times the record of an awful event which occurred in this market-place in the year 1753, hoping that such a record may serve as a salutary warning against the danger of impiously invoking divine vengeance or of calling on the holy name of God to conceal the devices of falsehood and fraud.

On Thursday, the 25 of January, 1753, Ruth lerce of Pottern, m this county, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion towards the same! One of these women in collecting the several quotas ot money discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Kutn Pierce the sum that was wanting to make


good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said ' she wished she might drop down dead if she had not ! ' She rashly repeated this awful wish, when, to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand."

LAWRENCE PHILLIPS.

As a boy I heard a similar story with reference to a woman at Norwich. It was asserted that she called God to witness to the fact that she had not received a certain piece of money. She instantly fell down dead, and the piece of money dropped from her mouth, in which she had concealed it. This would be about 1868, but I have heard it repeated many times since then. Strangely enough, I found the same tradition of death after lying in a small town in Virginia, the only difference being that the person thus convicted was a negro.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

If the querist is interested in the subject of Divine interposition following sin, he might care to peruse a book compiled by William London, a Newcastle bookseller, whose name appears ante, p. 142. It is entitled :

' Gods Judgements upon Drunkards, Swearers

and Sabbath- breakers. In a collection of the most remarkable Examples of Gods revealed wrath upon these sins ; with their Aggravations, as well from Scripture, as Reason. And a Caution to Authority lest the Impunity of these evils bring a scourge upon the whole Nation. By W. L. Printed for William London, 1659."

The book is dedicated to the Mayor, Becorder, Aldermen, Sheriff, and Common

buncil of Newcastle, and, after 62 un- igured pages of dedication and epistle to

he reader, contains 47 pages about judg-

ments upon drunkards, 32 pages upon cursers and swearers, and 48 pages upon Sabbath- Beakers. It is notable that the compiler

ives no examples of death after lying.

BICHARD WELFORD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

DOLLS IN MAGIC (10 S. ix. 168 ; x. 118). Horace mentions these dolls ; and Medea md other enchantresses made use of them : Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit, Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus.

And there is a story in the ' Gesta Bo- nanorum ' which is 'the original, of ' The ^eech of Folkestone ' in ' The Ingoldsby ^egends.' In the reign of Charles IX. of Trance such images were found in the " ouse of La Mole ; and it was said that he ad procured them in order to accomplish tie death of Charles, then labouring under