248
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. MAY 29, 1*20.
'him and set him up again, with apologies and
-promises of a new coat of gilding. And he
also tells us that there is what appears a
genuine story of a Chinaman who had paid
an idol priest to cure his daughter, but she
<iied ; whereupon the swindled worshipper
'brought an action at law against the God,
who for his fraud was banished from the
(province.
Prof. Tylor also cites the story of the Arkadian youths coming back from a bad
day's hunting and revenging themselves by scourging and pricking Pan's statue, and that of Augustus chastising in effigy the ill- behaved Neptune ; and refers to the peasant of Southern Europe, who alternately coaxes and tramples on his special' saint fetish, and ducks the Virgin or St. Peter for rain.
The subject may further be illustrated v from Caxton's translation of the ' Golden Legend.' In the life of S. Loye we read :
" The sexton of the Church of S. Columba in
Paris came to S. Loye, and said to him that thieves had borne away by night all the jewels and parements of the said church. Then S. Loye -went into the oratory of S. Columba and said to
him ' Hark thou, Columba, what I say to thee : my Redeemer will that anon thou bring again the ornaments of this church that have been -taken away, or I shall in suchwise close the doors
with thorns that never hereafter thou shalt in this place, be served or worshipped.' When he "had thus said he- departed. On the morn the
Sexton of the said church, that was called Maturin, rose up aud found all the parements and jewels that had been borne away, and were set up in the > place as they had been before."
In the ' Legend of S. Nicholas ' we are -told of a Jew, who set up an image of this
saint in his house and ordered it to take <care of his goods, saying to him, "Nicholas, rlo ! here be all my goods, I charge thee to
- keep them, and if thou keep them not well
1 shall avenge me on thee in beating and ^tormenting thee." While the Jew was away thieves came and stole his goods and on his rifeturn the Jew
" areasoned the image saying ' Sir Xicholas, I had set you in my house for to keep my goods from -thieves, wherefore have ye not kept them ? Ye -ehall receive sorrow and torments, and shall have
pain for the thieves. I shall avenge my loss and refrain my woodness in beating thee.' And then .the Jew took the image and beat it and tormented it cruelly. Then happed a great marvel for when the thieves departed the goods the holy Saint, like as he had been in his array appeared rfco the thieves, and said to them : ' Wherefore have I been beaten so cruelly for you, and have so many torments. See how my body is hewed and 'broken : see how that the red blood runneth down aay body : go ye fast and restore it again, or else Ahe_ire of God Almighty shall make you to' be as
one out of his wit, and that all men shall know
your felony, and that each of you shall be hanged '
and they said, ' who art thou that sayest to us
such things ? ' And he said to them, 'I am
Nicholas the servant of Jesus Christ whom the
Jew hath so cruelly beaten for his goods that ye
bare away.' Then they were afeared and came
to the Jew, and heard what he had done to the
image, and they told him the miracle and delivered
to him again all his goods."
After half a century's operation of a national system of elementary education it may perhaps appear strange to find an English seaman exhibiting the mental attitude of the Ostyak or the Kurile Islander, but it should serve to remind us that " Civilization is but a thin veneer, and the primeval barbarism is often very near the surface " (Maria Rolfe Cox, ' Introduction to Folk Lore '). WM. SELF-WEEKS.
Westwood, Clitheroe.
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN TITLES RELIN-
QUISHED. -The discarding of their German
and Austrian titles by seven English gentle-
men in consequence of the war is worthy
of record in the pages of ' N. & Q.,' as
reported in the following cutting from The
Morning Post of March 3, 1920 :
FOREIGN TITLES DISCARDED. SIX BARONS AND A COUNT OF GERMANY AND
AUSTRIA.
Seven British subjects bearing German and Austrian titles six barons and one count have petitioned the King to cancel the licences which sanctioned their use of the distinctions, and it was announced yesterday that his Majesty had granted the prayer. The gentlemen and their discarded titles are named below ;
Anthony Denis Maurice George de Worms, Percy George de Worms Barons of Austria.
Maurice Arnold de Forest Baron of Austria.
Alleyne Alfred Boxall Baron of Saxe Coburg atid Gotha.
Algernon John FitzTloy Nugent Baron of Austria.
Dudley Beaumont Gurowski Count Gurowski (title granted by Frederick William King of Prussia, 1787).
William Henry Schroder Baron o Prussia.
The third on the list, the Barony of Boxall (Saxe-Coburg, 1900), was of an exceptionally peculiar character, for the Baron not only held Queen Victoria's warrant (Oct. 17, 1900), authorising the assumption of the title by the grantee and the heirs male of his body, but also a warrant from the late King Edward VII. granting him precedence of all the Barons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. j
