54
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. JULY 20, 1907.
MR. ALFRED ANSCOMBE for his additional
early reference. Not being a philologist,
I will not venture into a discussion of the
derivation of " Chiltern," except to point out
that MR. ANSCOMBE'S suggestions all assume
the r to be of no importance. Yet it occurs
not only in the ordinary form of the word,
but also in the form " Ciltre," which is
found in the Rotuli Hundredorum and
Inquisitiones Nonarum as well us in some
of the cases already quoted.
A. MORLEY DAVIES. Winchmore Hill, Amersham.
KEMBLE BURIAL-PLACES (10 S. vii. 509). Charles Kemble is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His wife (Marie Therese De Camp), who predeceased her husband by sixteen years, lies in Addlestone Churchyard, near Chertsey. ROBERT WALTERS.
Ware Priory.
[MR. W. DOUGLAS also thanked for reply.]
OXFORD DIVINITY EXAMINATION (10 S. vii. 470). In those days of which the REV. F. HARRISON (an old friend and contem- porary of mine at Oxford) speaks, the examinee stood up when construing his Greek Testament, and then at its conclusion was politely asked to sit down. Those were days when a failure in divinity precluded any candidate from his degree.
The Rev. E. H. Hansell was for many years a Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen College, curate of St. Peter-in-the-East, and filled the office of Public Examiner in Dis. Math, et Physicis. He was a well-known man in the University, and one of the most popular of " dons." In those days there were only seven public examiners ; now there must be twenty.
JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.
Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
" WY " IN HAMPSHIRE (10 S. vii. 508). It is explained in my note to ' Piers the Plowman,' Text B, passus v. 1. 205, that Wy certainly refers to Weyhill fair, which even in modern times sometimes lasts eight days, beginning on 10 October ; and that Win- chester fair was held on St. Giles's Down, near Winchester. There is now a railway station at Weyhill, on the line from Andover to Salisbury. In Text C, v. 51, St. Giles's Down is mentioned.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
Lest we suffer rebuke for not having knowledge of PROF. SKEAT'S notes on
- Piers the Plowman,' I hasten to say that
he accepts or did accept the suggestion of Warton (' Hist. Eng. Poetry,' ed. 1840,
ii. 55 ; ed. 1871, ii. 259) that Wy is Weyhill,
near Andover, a place famous for an October
fair which rages for a week.
ST. SWITHIN.
[Other correspondents thanked for replies.]
FOLK-LORE CONCERNING TWINS (10 S. vii. 387). We are told in Folk-lore for December, 1900, that a belief is current in Egypt that the souls of twins, when they die, pass into the bodies of cats (392). Can this be a survival from those long-past days when the cat was in Egypt an object of worship ?
ASTARTE.
" KEELHAUL " : " COBKEY " : " MORRY- OUNE " (10 S. vii. 448). At the conclusion of Mr. Peters's story, ' The Bagman's Dog,' in ' Ingoldsby Legends,' will be found some " vague information of a practice "
which often, in cases of robbing, Is adopted on shipboard I think it's calld "cobbing."
JOHN HEBB.
In a recently published book, the ' Storia do Mogor,' by Niccolao Manucci, translated by William Irvine (" Indian Texts Series "), I find on p. 22 that one of the presents carried to the King of Persia by Lord Bellomont was a head-piece of fine work- manship, described as a morion. Perhaps this reference may be useful to your corre- spondent. A head-piece could certainly be used as an instrument of torture, if made in a certain way, as, e.g., the head-piece used for the punishment of scolds.
FRANK PENNY.
In Prof. Wilson's ' French and English Dictionary ' (Reeves & Turner, 1878) " morion " is defined as " punition dont on se sert a 1'egard des soldats, en les frappant sur le derriere avec la hampe d'une halle- barde " (p. 1053).
J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.
" DOWB " (10 S. vii. 509). Is not "Dowb, the first of all his race," an allusion to Lord Panmure's famous telegram at the time of the Crimean War, " Take care of Dowb " ? NORTH MIDLAND.
" HUBBUB " = DISTURBANCE (10 S. vii. 507). The ' N.E.D.' duly tells us that hidtbub does not appear in English till after 1550, and that its earliest sense was " a confused noise." That it was brought over in the time of the Crusades would require much proof. There is no contact in time.
English has commonly been assumed, by many, to consist of the dregs of the corrupt usages of all other languages. No other
