510
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. DEC. 2*.
labour of Edward Marshall. Tomb-maker under
St. Dunstan's Church in the West in Fleet St."
Although MR. MARSTON does not mention it in his reference, Howell's letter (at any rate in the first edition, 1645) says :
" At the bottom of the stone ther is ' Here lies Elizabeth Oxenham, mother of the said John, who died 16 years since, when such a Bird with a White- Brest was Seen about her Bed before her death.' "
The names in the tract are not the same as given by Howell, but it will be noticed he wrote the inscriptions " to the best of his remembrance."
Although the facts related in this tract and Howell's 'Familiar Letters' (published in succeeding editions from 1645 to 1754) caused widespread interest, the stone could not be traced. Lysons's 'Magna Britannia' (Devon vol., 1822) states that the monument was not existing at Zeal Monachorum, and even that there was no reference to the Oxenham family in the registers of that parish. (As a matter of fact there are only four entries in the register of burials for 1635, dated 26 May, 18 September, and 18 October, although, strange to say, a portion of the leaf has been cut out between 26 May and 18 Sep- tember, entries big enough to have contained the four Oxenham burials.)
The Oxenham family having settled from a very early period, as readers of ' Westward Ho ! ' will remember, at South Tawton, in Devonshire, where there is an Oxenham estate which passed from the family at the end of the eighteenth century by marriage to the Aclands, and thence to the Hoares, our attention might be turned there, especially as South Zeal (South Sele) in that parish at one time largely owned by the Oxenhams might have been confounded with Zeal (Sele) Monachorum, such confusion occasion- ally arising in these enlightened days even. Ihe white-bird tradition has always been associated with this parish, and there is a mural tablet in the church to the memory of William Oxenham, who died in December, in 43 ' u , the a PP ari fcion had appeared. Ihe church was restored about 1880, but although every care was taken of the old stones, some dated early in the seventeenth century, nothing was known of the "huge marble monument forming the subject of this communication, neither does the burial register contain the four entries of 1635, but the folio wing one-" 1618. Gratia uxor Johaiis Oxenham sepult. Secundo die Septem " doubtless refers to the Grace mentioned at tne toot or the missing stone.
Pol whole's 'History of Devonshire ' (1793) said it could not be traced.
W. CURZON YEO.
MR. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN'S reference
goes so far back that possibly it may not be
available to MR. E. MARSTON and the majority
of readers. Reference may, therefore, be
made to the fact that the Oxenham family
lived for generations at South Tawton(De von),
near which is situated Oxenham Manor House,
but the whereabouts of the inscribed stone
referred to is locally unknown. Members of
the family have been interred in and around
its church of St. Andrew from time im-
memorial, but the register contains no entry
of a John Oxenham's burial in 1632.
The late Mr. R. W. Cotton read a paper upon the Oxenham omen, at Crediton, in July, 1882, and this is preserved in the pub- lished Transactions of the Devonshire Asso- ciation for that year.
It may be recollected that the first chapter of Charles Kingsley's * Westward Ho ! ' is entitled ' How Mr. Oxenham saw the White Bird.' Therein the author gives the date as 1575, and records how John Oxenham, espying something in the air, that no one else around him saw, cried in alarm, " There ! Do you see it ? The bird ! the bird with the white breast!" Presently he left the room in a " regular blue funk," and Mrs. Leigh, who was present, remarked to Sir Richard Grenvil :
"That bird has been seen for generations before the death of any of his family. I know those who were at South Tawton when his mother died, and his brother also, and they both saw it. God help him ! for, after all, he is a proper man."
HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.
Cos AS DE ESPANA (10 th S. i. 247, 332, 458 ;
ii. 474). I am cheered by the notice DON
FLORENCIO DE UHAGON has taken of my
question, which had seemed to be unheeded
by the helpful contributors to 'N". & Q.' It
is interesting to learn that it was an old
Spanish custom to suspend one or two ostrich
eggs about an altar, and though there are
three at Burgos, and they are not hanging,
but piled one on two like Italian heraldic
monti* they may be survivals of the old use,
which was not improbably of Saracenic
origin. I have seen pendent ostrich eggs in
Oriental churches and in mosques, and have
regarded them as symbols of the Resurrec-
tion. I have not Sir J. G. Wilkinson's
- Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians' at hand just now, but, if I may quote at second-hand from a paper by the
- It may be mentioned that the Theatins, accord-
ing to Dr! Woodward, bear a cross-Calvary on a mountain of three coiipeaux (' Eccles. Heraldry,' p. 424).
