402
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. MAY 19, woo.
old French or Norman name, Yolande, which
is like lolanthe. Although I know that
Violante is an Italian name, I do not
remember to have met with it anywhere,
except in one of Miss Edgeworth's stories.
There it is certainly feminine.
E. YARDLEY.
"PINEAPPLE" (9 th S. iv. 419). It is worth noting that the "pyne-appel" mentioned in 1483, before the discovery of Brazil and of the ananas, was what we now call a pine-cone or fir-cone ; and the ananas received its Eng- lish name from its likeness in form to the same. Moreover, there are earlier references to the fir-cone, viz., in the Middle-English poem on 'Susannah,' in the Vernon MS., 1. 82, and in the M.-E. translation of c Palla- dius on Husbandry,' book iii. 1. 1049, where the^pine is called a "pynappultree." The A.-S. name is pfai-hnutu. i.e., pine-nut.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
BUCTH (9 th S. v. 316). Two place-names near here contain the above word or sound. Buchtknow, a farm, probably is derived from the Saxon. This name I have not been able to trace further back than the seventeenth century. Polbuth, a small property, the locality of which seems to be now lost, is a name which occurs in charters of the fifteenth century, and may be derived from the Gaelic. J. G. WALL ACE- JAMES, M.B.
Haddington.
CASTS OF ANCIENT SEALS (9 th S. v. 288). Your correspondent does not say what kind of seal he is in search of. I possess several hundred small casts of ancient classical seals. I have a number of duplicates, I should think they could be obtained from Brucianni, Drury Lane, London. CHARLES GREEN.
18, Shrewsbury Road, Sheffield.
Mr. J. P. Ready, who has an atelier in the British Museum, takes very fine casts from ancient seals, &c. E. L.-W.
SIR ROBERT AND SIR WM. STUART (9 th S. v. 336). The latter was an undertaker for the plantation of Ulster. He sat for Donegal in the Irish Parliament (1613-15), and was created baronet in May, J623. Sir Robert Stewart was thought to be the younger brother of Sir William, but apparently the evidence of relationship is doubtful. The
- Diet. Nat. Biog.' connects Sir Robert with
Sir Patrick Stewart, of Orkney. Whether they were related or riot, Sir William and Sir Robert fought under the king's commission against Sir Phelim O'Neill. The tract under notice plainly refers to the battle of Glen-
maquin, near Raphoe (16 June, 1642), where
O'Neill and Alexander MacDonald (the famous
" Colkitto" of Montrose's war) were defeated
after a sharp struggle, in which Sir Robert
Stewart carried off the honours. The tract is,
therefore, true enough, which is more than
can be said for some of the * True Relations '
about O'Neill published at that time.
GEORGE MARSHALL. Sefton Park, Liverpool.
JOHN BOTONER (9 th S. v. 269). The John Botoner inquired for witnessed a deed between Adam Botener and others, dated Coventry, 14 Dec., 2 Ric. II. (1378). See Misc. Gen. et Her., New Series, i. 375. A pedigree of Botoner, alias Wyrcestre, of Bristol, with their arms, may be found in Dallaway's edition of Wm. Wyrcestre's notes about Bristol from his 'Itinerary,' p. 18. This William Wyrcestre (born 1415) was secretary and physician to Sir John Fastolf, and he took his mother's name of Botoner.
A. S. ELLIS.
FOOTBALL ON SHROVE TUESDAY (9 th S. v. 283). It would be interesting to collect the local references throughout the country to this custom of football-playing on Shrove Tuesday. One such can be given from the latest published volume of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, for among the municipal archives of Shrewsbury is a record of a petition of the time of Elizabeth from John Gyttyns the younger for discharge from imprisonment, having been committed " for playing at the foot balle upon Shrof- tusdaie, and for throwinge the balle from hime whene the serigent Hardinge demaunded the same " (Fifteenth Report, Appendix, part x. p. 62). ALFRED F. ROBBINS.
"BLENKARD" (8 th S. vi. 89, 398, 473 ; x. 116, 160). "To 30 : Bottles of Blenkard 03 :00 :00." The explanation of this Yorkshire tavern entry of 1695, quoted in * Button in Holder- ness' (1896), has been twice asked for in 1 N. & Q.' once by the author, MR. THOMAS BLASHILL. As no attempt has been made to offer a reasonable explanation the query still remains. I now suggest that this Blenkard is the " Bleahard " referred to by Pepys (19 June, 1663) :
" To the Rhenish wine-house, where we called for a red Rhenish wine called Bleahard, a pretty wine, and not mixed, as they say."
The attempts made in the seventeenth cen- tury to regulate prices of foreign wines by statute naturally led to much mixing and consequent reduction in quality, as Pepys probably knew. There are not many red
