Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/140

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.u. FEB. 12, me.

them down to him. On the spot where they fell sprang up the well aforesaid. The story is given at length, and in much detail, in the 'Breviarium Aberdonense,' folios clviii., clix. (Banna tyne Club, 1852). The lapse of fifteen hundred years has not prevailed to weaken the belief of the faithful in the virtues of the Chincough Well. The Presbyterian inhabitants of the district still resort to it as a prophylactic and remedy. Only three or four years ago, the son and heir of a great Catholic nobleman being ill with whooping-cough in London, I was asked to send a bottle of the water, which I did, and the child recovered. Quid plura? I need scarcely add that, chemically, the water of the Chincough Well does not differ appreciably from that of hundreds of other springs in the neighbourhood. In the Celtic Kalendar St. Medana is allotted Nov. 19 as her feast-day. Herbert Maxwell.

Monreith.


Hagiography of Cyprus (11 S. xii. 460; 12 S. i. 13).—Is not Nikandros for Nikander the name of a Christian soldier living in Egypt, who suffered martyrdom, with ten companions, under Diocletian? ("They were placed in a sort of walled pound, exposed to the full glare of the sun in the hot summer," and had to die from thirst.) Their feast, in the Greek calendar, is on June 8 (see Rev. Alban Butler at June 17, and Baring-Gould, vol. June, pp. 39 and 231).

Is Arkadhi, perhaps, for St. Arcadius? He was living about 260 in the north of Africa, and suffered martyrdom by having all his limbs amputated; in art he is represented as a torso; his feast, according to the Latins, is on Jan. 12 (see Baring-Gould, vol. January, p. 162). Arcade is also the name of a Greek emperor who may have been considered as a saint, but it is hardly likely, as he was excommunicated in the time of St. John Chrysostomus.

I should suggest that the translation of the names would be of some use, as they may have been Latinized by the Western Church. Shall I say I understand Akindynos as being something like Pacificus ; Arga like Clara, Fulgens or Fulgida ; Dryinos for Querceus, Quercinus (?), or Robustus Phylaxis for Gustos or Janitor; Nipios could be Infans or Puer, the child Jesus, or an infant martyr. Is Armenios a wrong tradnc- tion for Arsenics, a w r ell-known name in the Greek Church ?

By the way, I should be pleased to learn from MR. GEO. JEFFERY if there remains any


tradition about a certain stone said to have the curious property of counteracting the effect of loadstone on iron :

Frigida nam chalybi suspendo metalla per auras,

Vi quadani superans ferrea fata revinco,

Mox adamante Cypri presente potentia fraudor."

Aldhelrni yEnigmata, ' De magnete ferrifero.' PIERRE TURPIN.

The Bayle, Folkestone.

GTJIDOTT FAMILY (US. xii. 258, 422). The recently issued publication of the Southampton Record Soc., ' The Black Book of Southampton,' vol. iii., supplies the family name of Sir Anthony Guidotti' s wife Dorothe : " The son-in-law of Henry Huttoft, the builder of the Tudor House, was a Florentine, Antony Guidotti " (p. ix) ; and further (p. xvii) : " Thus Antony Guidotti, who married Huttoft' s daughter, ruined himself and nearly ruined his father-in-law."

On p. 58, n., Henry Huttoft is referred to as " sheriff 1521, mayor 1525 and 1534. He caused some discontent during his mayoralty by making a Florentine merchant a burgess without the town's consent."

JOHN L. WHITEHEAD, M.D.

Ventnor.

THE MORAY MINSTRELS (12 S. i. 10, 54). My recollections of this merry band differ altogether from those of G. F. R. B. They w r ere generally known in earlier days as the Jermyn (Street) Band, which met at the rooms occupied in that street by Mr. Arthur Lewis. Far from being given only to ballad and glee singing, they numbered amongst their body many amateur instrumentalists of distinction. Although I. do not pretend to special knowledge, or wish to dogmatize, I am inclined to believe that the idea of the Arts Club germinated in Jermyn Street. Mr. Arthur Lewis was a very accomplished water-colour painter, as well as many other things, and his rooms were the rendezvous of artists of various professions. After his marriage with Miss Kate Terry, he took Moray Lodge, Campden Hill, on the opposite side of the pathway which separated it from Holly Lodge, once Macaulay's home. The hospitable traditions of Jermyn Street were continued for some years, and invitations to the concerts were greatly sought after ; but family claims at length extinguished this Bohemian cenacle. Johnnie Foster, before going to Westminster, had been organist and choirmaster at St. Andrew's, Well Street, and had made that church as attractive by its music as by its ornate ritual, which was in advance of other churches. L. G. R.

Bournemouth.