. ii. DEC. 3. 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
455
children's quarrels, took Lucy, Emily, anc
Henry for a long walk to see the body oi
a man who had murdered his brother, and
had been hung in chains on a gibbet. There
is a gruesome description of the state of the
corpse, and the children were terribly fright
eneri, but were not allowed to leave the
spot until Mr. Fairchild had delivered another
homily and had offered a prayer suitable to
the occasion.
'The Fairchild Family,' upon which many of us were brought up, is not often read now, but the story of the excursion to the gibbel shows how public executions were regardec by pious people at the beginning of the nine- teenth century. J. A. J. HOUSDEN.
BLOOD USED IN BUILDING (10 th S. ii. 389). I have often heard that the mortar used in old buildings has been mixed with blood for the purpose of giving the walls additional strength. Whether this has ever occurred, or whether it be mere folk-lore, I have no present means of ascertaining, but knowing, as we do, how readily foundationless beliefs translate themselves into action, there would be nothing surprising if proof should be come upon. Clement Walker, in his ' History of Independency,' alludes to the practice (iii. 3); and about six years ago an old man who all his life had worked as a mason told me that he had heard how "in foreign parts, when they wanted to build something very strong, they got a lot of children, killed them, and put their blood in the mortar." In the
- Romance of Ogier of Denmark' we hear
of certain persons taking refuge in a tower of Saracen work; " all its mortar was boiled with blood; it fears no engine" (Ludlow's "Epics of the Middle Ages,' ii. 288). What fenders it highly probable that blood should have been used for this purpose is the fact that we hear of other materials equally useless for giving strength to walls being employed under the same idea. The follow- ing examples may be of service :
Beer. Eastwood's * History of Ecclesfield,' 221.
Cheese. ' Louth (Lincolnshire) Church- wardens' Accounts,' iv. 887; 'English Dialect Dictionary.'
Eggs. 4 Midland Counties Hist. Col.,'i. 263.
Milk. Archceological Journal, Institute, December, 1900, 332.
Wax. Oliver, 'Lives of the Bishops of Exeter,' 186.
Wine. Sir John Forbes, * Sightseeing in Germany,' 87.
It may be well to draw attention to the iact that Lord Avebury has brought under
the notice of his readers an analogous belief
which indicates that a supposed likeness in
colour only may sometimes lead far astray.
He says :
" The gravel on the Roman Road near Eastrea has become cemented by iron since it was laid down, and has assumed a red colour which has given rise to a local legend that the Romans cemented it with blood." 'The Scenery of England,' 1902, p. 458.
EDWARD PEACOCK. Kirton-in-Lindsey.
[Compare the Rev. Sabine Baring -Gould on 'Church Grims.'j
PUBLISHERS' CATALOGUES (10 th S. ii. 50, 118, 357). The following extract from the Nov.- Dec., 1904. catalogue (No. 41) issued by Murray s, Ltd., of Leicester, mentions an early publisher's catalogue :
"No. 31, Banyan. The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come, by John Bunian. The tenth edition, with additions. London, Printed for Nathaniel Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultrey, near the church, 168o. 12mo, frontispiece and other illustrations, in the old calf (binding little damaged), very rare, '251. The above is quite perfect, having the advertisements and ' Books printed for Nathaniel Ponder,' 2 leaves, at end. A copy by auction in 1903 fetched 6W."
RONALD DIXON.
AINSTY (10 th S. ii. 25, 97). Life is made up of many interests. My thoughts have been diverted from Ainsty, and I have profited less than 1 might have done by the help your correspondents have kindly endeavoured to give. Now that I turn again to the ques- tion, I find I am compelled to ask MR. A. HALL to direct me to the localities in which Ainsty occurs as a place-name in Cambridge- shire, Dorset, Devon, Hants', Leicester, Wilts, and Warwickshire.
It does not appear to me that the via regia and the placea are necessarily synonymous in the passage from the * Rotuli Hundredorum ' which MR. S. O. ADDY cites touching the " Wappentagium de Aynesty." I am told by a learned friend that although placed means, as often as not, a square or a street, possibly it also bears the signification of a fortified enclosure. ST. SWITHIN.
" BONNETS OF BLUE" (10 th S. ii. 347). Both
- he words and music may be found in the
British Museum. They are entered in the Music Catalogue under the heading 'Lee, George Alexander,' the composer. The song entitled 'Hurrah! for the Bonnets of Blue' was sung in a two-act farce by Richard Brinsley Peake, called ' The One Hundred 3 ound Note.' Madame Vestris sang it in London, and Mrs. Waylett, who after the death of her husband married G. A. Lee,
