276
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. APRIL i,
A SMOKEBS' SUPERSTITION (12 S. i. 208).
The story I was told about this is as follows.
Some soldiers, during a war, were in a
supposed place of safety, and thought they
would smoke. One of them, after lighting
the cigarettes of two men, was in the act of
lighting his own (with the same match)
when he was shot dead by the enemy. The
idea was that if the match had been ex-
tinguished after the second man had " lighted
up," the third man would not have been
seen and shot. The light lasted just that
fraction of a second too long. Hence the
superstition that it is unlucky to light three
cigarettes with one match.
M. A. WlENHOLT.
10 Selborue Road, Hove.
In reply to the inquiry of PRIVATE BRADSTOW as to why smokers so consistently avoid the lighting of three smokes with one match, I beg to suggest that the under- written is the origin of this practice.
During the Boer War it happened that three pals were taking a light from the same match, and the third had no sooner done so than he was picked off by the enemy. If the tale is correct, this happened two or three times afterwards, and doubtless such a coincidence would make no small impression, and would cause a local taboo on economy in matches. It is easy to see how soon such a practice would spread. At any rate, this is how a friend of mine, who is an officer, accounted for this universal practice of the smoker. CLEMENT F. PITMAN.
8 Pilgrim's Lane, Hampstead, N.W.
" HARPASTUM " : FOOTBALL" (12 S. i. 165). If we could conjure up from the dead two teams of players to give us an exhibition of
Harpastum," we might understand the rules and methods of the game. Till then we can know little about its precise details. But football it certainly was not. Misguided attempts have been made to show that it was identical with lawn tennis, or with polo ! Bishop Cooper in the 1573 edition of his
Thesaurus Linguae Romance & Britan- nicae ' denned " Harpastum " as " A fashion of great balles like to a foote ball." This is exactly what it was not. It was a small hard ball. The nature of the game has been discussed at length by several scholars. In The Classical Review for April, 1890, was a very interesting article on * The Game of " Harpastum " or " Pheninda," ' by G. E. Marindin, who dealt with the subject again under ^'Pila' in the third edition (1891) of Smith's ' Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.' In both places there is a
special warning against the attempt to
regard the game as a kind of football :
" He [i.e. Johann Marquardt] is also in error when he says that the players might kick the ball as well as throw it (he strangely cites as his authority Becq de Fouquieres, though that writer quotes no passage to prove it). We must repeat that we cannot discover any trace of ' football ' in Greek or Latin writers ; and, further than this, Galen speaks of the exercise, in these games, to the muscles of the arms by throwing, but of the legs by running : had kicking the ball been within the rules, he would certainly have mentioned it." 'Diet. Ant.,' vol. ii. p. 424.
In the ' Real - Encyclopadie ' of Pauly,. Wissowa, and Kroll, which is indispensable to the classical student, there is an article of two columns (vol. vii., 1912, cols. 2405-7) on
- Harpastum,' with a short bibliography,,
which, of course, includes Marindin's paper- in The Classical Review.
EDWARD BENSLY. University College, Aberystwyth.
May I draw attention to what I think is an error in L. L. K.'s interesting note ?
Perhaps there is a misprint in the 1594 edition of Calepini ' Dictionarium Decem Linguarum,' from which he quotes. I refer to the statement that Calepino's " Italian contributor boldly translates the word; [Harpastum] as 'palla del c'alzo ' (shoe-ball)."
In the 1625 edition of Calepini ' Diction- arium,' the Italian translation of Harpastum is Palla del calcio. Calzo and calcio are very far from being synonymous.
In Josephi Laurentii ' Amalthea Onomas- tica,' Luc se, 1640, is :
" Harpastum, pilse genus, grossior pila paganica,, tenuior folle, pal/on del calcio.'"
In the second part of this book, entitled ' Onomasticurn Italico-Latinum,' sub ' Lu- soria,' p. 54, is " Pallone al calcio, Harpas- tum."
In John Florio's ' Queen Anna's New World of Words,' 1611, is :
"Calcio, as Calce A kind of play used in
Spaine and Italic like unto the play at Ballone."
Then under * Calce ' there appears, inter- alia, " a kicke or winning blow a yerkewith ones heeles." :
Reference to ' Vocabolario degli Acca- demici della Crusca,' Verona, 1806, shows that Calzo II calzare, which, according to Baretti, ' Dizionario,' Livorno, 1828, means
shoes and stockings," whereas calcio, ac- cording to the ' Delia Crusca ' dictionary, means " a blow given with the foot " (" percossa, che si da col piede "). The ' Delia Crusca ' dictionary also gives, as one- of the meanings of calcio, a name of an.
