io 8. in. MAT ig, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
375
restricted sense, and with reference only to
the spears or beard of barley, which so easily
break off and torment the men when carry-
ing it by getting inside their open shirt
fronts. I am rather surprised not to find the
make, though from various parts of the
county. I have not heard of the flail being
used in Shropshire by thrashers for some
word in this sense in Barnes's ' Glossary of
the Dorset Dialect' (published for the Philo-
logical Society at Berlin in 1863), as the word
is familiar to me from a boy. It may be in
his later glossary, published, I think, about
the time of his death in 1886, but I cannot
refer to that here.
But he gives the word hile (A.-S. hilan, to cover ?) as meaning ten sheaves of corn set up in the field, four on each side, and one at each end, and forming a kind of roof.
J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.
Antigua, W.I.
PALINDROME (10 th S. iii. 249, 310). The word repum is quoted by Ducange as in use in mediaeval Latin, meaning filum, a thread. H. A. STRONG.
University, Liverpool.
I read arepo as a compound, a-repo, so "the sower by spreading keeps labour revolving "may apply to any pursuit.
A. H.
PILLION : FLAILS (10 th S. iii. 267, 338). The flail was in constant use in this locality forty years ago. I still remember my first trial with the instrument, and how narrowly I escaped hitting my head with the " swingel."
I venture to reproduce the following para- graph from my 'Notes on Folk-lore,' now appearing weekly in The East London Advertiser :
"There is no doubt that the advent of the thrashing machine has sent into oblivion the old form of thrashing with a flail. The work, which used to take up most of the winter when done by hand, is now accomplished in a few hours by the steam power. It would almost be impossible to find a farm hand who could handle a flail with skill.
years past,
which was
I have also got a piler, or peeler,
used to detach the beard from
barley, rye, or oats after thrashing. It is
somewhat like a modern boot-scraper, of iron,
with a centre broom-handle.
HERBERT SOUTHAM. Shrewsbury.
Seven or eight years ago I saw thrashers afc work with flails at Arnside, in North Lanca- shire. Flails are, I believe, still in use in out- of-the-way places. For a series of notes on flails, see recent numbers of the Proceedings of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries.
R B-E.
NICHOLAS, BISHOP OF COVENTRY AND LICHFIELD (10 th S. iii. 328). There was not a Nicholas, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, if we may trust Le Neve's 'Fasti Ecclesise Anglicanse,' in 1G18, when Edmond Willis's book was published. It appears that Philip Gibbs, writing in 1736, speaks of the work as dedicated to the Bishop of Bristol. If this be so, Nicholas Felton, who was Bishop of Bristol 1617-19, is the person meant. How the contradiction arose it is not easy to tell. Perhaps in the first edition there was an error in the see of the divine to whom Willis dedicated his book, and on its discovery a new and correct dedication may have been supplied to the
copies which remained unsold.
K. P. D. E.
The only Bishop of Lichfield with the
Christian name of Nicholas was Cloose, or
Close, who occupied that see for a portion
of the year 1452. John Overall was bishop
from 1614 to 1619.
CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.
[MR. A. R. BAYLEY and MR. VV. NORMAN also refer to Nicholas Felton, Bishop of Bristol.]
CROMER STREET (10 th S. iii. 248, 336). It may be of interest to note that there was in Lloyd's Weekly Neios, Sunday, 9 April, an illustration of one of the houses referred to. GEORGE POTTER.
Highgate, N.
A MILITARY EXECUTION (10 th S. iii. 304). As the daughter of the late General Keate, I may perhaps be allowed space to say, with reference to the note by W. S., that my father was present at the military execu- tion, and any trifling inaccuracies in the narrative, as repeated by G. M. in T. P.'s
^ ^....^o..*^ Weekly, are probably due to the fact that
flails, which do not vary very much in size or some time has elapsed since he heard the
There is an art in manipulating this unwieldy
instrument, as any one may find who tries for the
first time. It is apt to approach very closely to
one s head, unless great care is used. The 'swingel '
(ff pronounced.?'), as the swinging arm is called, is
tied to the revolving joint of the handle with a
thick thong of tough whit-leather, and is thus
alluded to by Clare in his ' Village Minstrel ' :
While distant thresher's swingel drops
n ith sharp and hollow-twankling raps.
I have heard of several people actually acquiring
flails as curiosities. They would doubtless form
quite as interesting mementos of the past as do
some of the curios from foreign lands."
, TT , JOHN T. PAGE.
West Haddon, Northamptonshire.
have a small collection of Shropshire
