9 th S. II. DEC. 3, '98.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
449
whose cause they had espoused and supported in
life and death. It was to gratify this affectionate
feeling that the seven mourning rings were made
and presented to the devoted adherents of Charles I.
after his decapitation."
2. In Hulbert's 'History of Salop' is an account of a ring in the possession of the Misses Piggott, of Upton Magnse, "said to have been one of four presented by the unfortunate Charles I. prior to his execution."
If these entries refer to two separate sets of memorial rings there should be eleven of these rings in all. Can any one say where they now are, and whether they are identical in form ? If not, could the various inscrip- tions (if any) be preserved, for future reference, in your pages ?
T. CANN HUGHES, M.A.
Lancaster.
ALLUSION TO HABAKKUK THE PROPHET IN A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The following lines are quoted in ' N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. x. 386, and in part ante, p. 107, as taken from an old Christmas carol "in Mr. Wright's collection" (exact reference not given) :
As said the prophet Abacuc, Betwixt too Ibestes shulde lye our buk,
That mankind shuld redeme ; The oxe betokenithe mekenes here, The asse our gilte that he shulde bere,
And washe away our cryme.
I cannot find these lines in either of the collections of Christmas carols edited by T. Wright, F.S.A., viz., those of the Wharton Club and Percy Society.
I am acquainted with the genesis of the tradition that an ox and an ass overlooked the manger where the child Jesus lay. What I want is the exact reference and an annota- tion on the second line. Does buk here mean body ? Are we to interpret the second line as an allusion to the practice, in mediaeval representations of the Nativity, of placing an effigy of the child Jesus between the ox and the ass ? P.
LOWLEY FAMILY. I should be very glad to learn anything about the Lowley family of Burley and Oakham, Rutland, in the eighteenth century and before. There seem to have been three Miles Lowleys : one married
(probably) Margaret , and died at Burley,
1777 ; another, the Rev. Miles Lowley, of Oakham, who married Susanna Goddard, and whose children were born at Burley ; the third, his son, 1765, colonel of the 44th Regiment, whose son was the last of the name. They claimed the arms of Lowle of Somerset and Worcester.
CHARLES J. BELLAIRS GASKOIN.
55, Rhadegund Buildings, Cambridge.
BLACK IMAGES' OP THE MADONNA.
(9 th S. ii. 367, 397.)
ACCORDING to L'Intermediaire for 1896-7, passim, Vierges noires are said to* be, or to have been, at the following places, viz., the cathedral at Chartres ; the church of La Daurade, Toulouse ; Notre Dame la Noire, Perigord ; Saint Vorles, Chatillon-sur-Seine (image burnt October, 1793) ; Grenoble ; Notre Dame de Clery, Loiret ; Notre Dame de Recouvrance, Orleans ; Notre Dame de la Delivrande, near Lion-sur-Mer, Normandy ; Notre Dame de Grace, near Honfleur ; Notre Dame de Fourvriere, Lyon ; Prigny, Seine-et- Marne ; Notre Dame du Bon Espoir, Dijon ; Notre Dame de Beaune ; Notre Dame de Liesse, Aisne ; Notre Dame de Bonne Deliv- rance, Kerantrech - Lorient ; " La Negrette," Espalion ; the cathedral at Puy ; the abbey of Saint Victor, Marseille ; a little glass- fronted shrine in a by-street of Mende, Lozere (apparently of mediaeval origin) ; Saint Romain, Ardeche ; Notre Dame des Oli- viers, Murat : Hal, near Brussels ; Mezieres, Ardennes ; Saint Jean Baptiste, Luxem- bourg ; the convent of Notre Dame des Hermites, Einsiedeln, Switzerland ; Kazan, Russia ; Czenstochowo, Russian Poland.
The natural explanation of the circum- stance is that certain woods become darker with age, the smoke from the votive lamps occasionally helping the process. In several cases, as at Prigny, the images have been blackened by the fumes from conflagrations. It is possible that some of the oldest are imported figures of Isis. The question as to whether the Virgin herself was brunette or blond opens a wide field of discussion ; but the balance of argument perhaps lies against the statement that the text, "I am black (afflicted 1) but comely," was a reference to
- he Virgin, and in favour of the idea that
^hese images are intended to be worshipped .n spite of their swarthiness, and not on account of it. Their very colour, however, attracts pilgrims. ARTHUR MAYALL.
I have translated the following from
' Morien's " extremely interesting book on
the Druidic beliefs, entitled ' Pabell Dofydd'
The Tabernacle of the Lord ') :
"They [the Bards of the Gorsedd of the British
Isles] considered that the God Celi [the Ccelus of
the classic mythologists] existed from eternity, and
matter in a chaotic state, from eternity; and that
ihe spirit of the God Celi hovered so to speak
over the chaos. The Druids expressed this belief
irther in their poetry. They gave the name
