440
NOTES AND QUERIES. [u s. ix. MAY so, 191*.
Probably many readers will turn first to the
concluding chapter on ' Local Manners and Folk-
Lore ' ; but we are bound to say that any ex-
pectation of novelty will be disappointed. Some
of the customs noted are so prevalent and well
known that they do not seem worth recording,
e.g., that a boy has usually two godfathers and
one godmother, and a girl two godmothers and
one godfather. Others such as an elder un-
jnarried brother of the bridegroom, or an elder
unmarried sister of the bride, dancing in their
stockings at a wedding certainly deserved
mention, at any rate as instances of survival. The
importance of the colour of these stockings is a
little curious : in some places the bridegroom's
'brother must wear a different-coloured one on each
foot ; while in one district a bride's elder sister
in this same case must wear green stockings.
For the word " arval " a local name for a
funeral feast the writer quotes the diary of
Peter Walkden, a Nonconformist minister,
under date January, 1725 ; he notes, too, the use
of the word " memories " to denote the samplers
in which several departed members of a family
.are commemorated by doggerel verses.
Correspondents who were lately interested in ihe word " tray " may like to have the following anecdote : "A farmer, the owner of Loud Scales, in Chipping, staked his farm and lost it at a game >of ' Put,' on an ace, deuce, and tray, exclaiming :
Ace, deuce, and tray I Loud Scales, go thee way."
Cock- thro wing, we are told, was customary -at Brabin's School, Chipping, till well into the last century, the Roman Catholic boys in their own school carrying it on for some years longer. There is an account of " barring-out " as practised by the boys of Brabin's School before breaking up for the Christmas holidays at the same period. Among the " weather prognostications " of which .examples are given, the most interesting is " Noah's ship," which signifies rain within twenty-four hours. This is " a long white cloud resting on the horizon at either end, wider in the -centre, and tapering to the extremities, having the general appearance of the body of a ship bottom upwards." The appearance was said to be gener- .ally known by that name in that part of the country.
Of the accounts of superstitions, the best are those relating to fairies, and one of them is so quaint, especially as being believed within such comparatively recent days, that we may conclude this notice by quoting it :
" Old James Leeman of Saddle End relates the (following history, which he always heard to be true. A fairy of the female sex, near Whitewell, was expecting her confinement, and wished for the assistance of a midwife. Her fairy husband, though believing it unnecessary, was willing to oblige, and went to Clitheroe to engage one. Having succeeded in the object of his journey, he returned with her to Whitewell, and touching one of her eyes she immediately saw her patient. Everything went well, and in due time the mid- wife returned home. Some time afterwards, on a market day in Clitheroe, to her great surprise ^she saw her acquaintance, the little fairy hus- band, helping himself out of the different sacks. She at once accosted him, enquiring after his wife .and^child. He replied, ' What, do you see me ?
Out of which eye ? ' Keceiving the desired infor-
mation, he immediately touched it, and became
then and there invisible to the astonished mid-
wife."
Perm's Country. By E. S. Roscoe. (Longmans
& Co., 2s. 6d. net.)
THIS unpretentious little volume is published with the intention of showing that South Buck- inghamshire stands supreme in its association with statesmen and men of letters. Not only Penn, but Hampden, Milton, Gray, Burke, Shelley, and Disraeli were all familiar with this district of chalk uplands, beech woods, and pleasant valleys, though Shelley made his home at Marlow for less than a year.
The account of Cromwell's youngest daughter Frances, who was neither politician nor poet, gives interest to a description of Chequers Court, for there the historical portraits and letters preserved by her family still exist. The remains of her correspondence prove that she was a woman of ability, with a naturally gay spirit till soured by sorrow and care. Her early life was one of bereavement, and later she was burdened by heavy domestic anxieties. The once bright and charming Frances Cromwell died at the age of 82, wearied and hardened, as her portrait helps to show, by the difficulties of a troublous exist- ence. " Surviving all her brothers and sisters, her life was long, and in many ways remarkable." She who in early youth " had seen her father's system of government destroyed, saw. the Stuarts lose the throne a second time, and was a witness of the party struggles of the reign of Anne, and of the accession of the House of Hanover. The girl who had talked with Milton and Marvell and Waller lived to read the writings of Swift and Addison and Pope, for she did not die until January 27, 1721/'
to
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CORRESPONDENTS who send letters to be for- warded to other contributors should put on the top left-hand corner of their envelopes the number oi the page of *N. & Q.' to which their letters refer, so that the contributor may be readily identified.
L. V. Forwarded to querist.
H. S. (Reading). The subject is outside our province.
MR. A. E. MARTEN ("Church Registers" and " Parish Registers "). No difference.
MR. W. C. LANE (Harvard) and G. M. (High- land Park, Illinois). Thanks for reply, but antici- pated (see ante, pp. 357, 413).
MR. J. E. NORCROSS (Brooklyn). Thanks for appreciative letter. The note will appear. The two replies were anticipated by correspondents nearer home.
W. H. C. ("Paneter").-The 'N.E.D.' defines this as "a word originally meaning * baker,' but in M.E. usually applied to the officer of a household who supplied the bread and had charge of the pantry." Quotations range from 1297 to 1580.
