Chapter C: H. N

Cirencester.

_Heel-rake_, _Ell-rake_, or _Hell-rake_, is a large rake, which upon being drawn along the ground the teeth run close to the heels of the person drawing it. This has given it the name of _heel-rake_, its right name. In Shropshire (and probably in other counties also) this has become contracted into _ell-rake_.

SALOPIAN.

_Freedom from Serpents_ (Vol. iii., p. 490.).--Ireland is not the only country supposed to be inimical to reptiles. I may perhaps be allowed to add to the "Note" of your correspondent as to Ireland, that the Maltese declare that St. Paul after his shipwreck cursed all the venomous reptiles of the island, and banished them for ever, just as St. Patrick is said to have afterwards treated those of his favourite isle. Whatever be the cause of it, the fact is alleged by travellers to be certain, that there are _no venomous animals in Malta_. "They assured us" (says Brydone in his _Tour through Sicily and Malta_, vol. ii. p. 35.) "that vipers have been brought from Sicily, and died almost immediately on their arrival."

Although perhaps more strictly coming under the head of folk lore, I may here advert to the traditions found in several parts of England, that venomous reptiles were banished by saints who came to live there. I have read that Keynsham--the hermitage of Keynes, a Cambrian lady, A.D. 490--was infested with serpents, which were converted by her prayers into the "Serpent-stones"--the _Cornua Ammonis_--that now cover the land. A similar story is told at Whitby, where these fine fossils of the Lias are called "St. Hilda's Serpent-stones;" and so, too, St. Godric, the famous hermit of Finchale, near Durham, is said to have destroyed the native race of serpents.

W. S. G.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

_Nao, for Naw, for Ship_ (Vol. iv., pp. 28. 214.).--I am obliged to GOMER for his reference to Davies. In the cited passages from Taliesin and Meigant, _heb naw_ means without being able to swim. The word _nawv_ drops its final letter in order to furnish the rhyme. That appears, not only from the rejection of the word by all lexicographers, but from one of the manuscripts of Meigant, which actually writes it _nawv_. I esteem Davies's translation to be Daviesian.

By way of a gentle pull at the torques, I will observe, that I am not in the habit of proving that people "did _not_ possess" a thing, but of inquiring for the evidence that they did. And when I find that tattooed and nearly naked people used coracles, and do not find that they used anything grander, I am led to suspect they did not.

My answer to the Query, whether it be probable that British warriors went over to Gaul in coracles is, "Yes, highly so." Rude canoes of various sorts convey the expeditions of savage islanders in all seas. And the coracle rendered the Scots of Erin formidable to the Roman shores of Gaul and Britain. I do not see that the Dorsetshire folk being "water-dwellers" (if so be they were such) proved them to have used proper ships, any more than their being "water-drinkers" would prove them to have used glasses or silver tankards.

No doubt the name [Greek: naus] is of the remotest heroic antiquity, and the first osier bark covered with hides, or even the first excavated alder trunk, may have been so termed; in connexion with the verbal form _nao_, contract. _no_, _nas_, pret. _navi_, to float or swim. But to "advance that opinion" as to Britain, because two revolted Roman subjects in this province used the word in the sixth and seventh centuries after Christ, would be late and tardy proof of the fact; even supposing that the two bards in question had made use of such a noun, which I dispute.

A. N.

[This communication should have preceded that in No. 99., p. 214.]

_De Grammont_ (Vol. iv., p. 233.).--On the united authority of messieurs Auger and Renouard, editors of the works of le comte Antoine Hamilton, it may be affirmed that there is no edition of the _Mémoires du comte de Grammont_ anterior to that of 1713. M. Renouard thus expresses himself: "En 1713 parurent les _Mémoires_, sans nom d'auteur, en un vol. in-12, imprimé en Hollande sous la date de Cologne."

BOLTON CORNEY.

_The Termination "-ship"_ (Vol. iv., p. 153.).--The termination "-ship" is the Anglo-Saxon _scipe_, _scype_, from verb _scipan_, to create, form; and hence as a termination of nouns denotes _form_, _condition_, _office_, _dignity_.

THOS. LAURENCE.

Ashbey de la Zouch.

_The Five Fingers_ (Vol. iv., pp. 150. 193.).--With something like compunction for lavishing on Macrobius and his prosy compeers so many precious hours of a life that is waning fast, permit me to refer you to his _Saturnalia_, vii. 13., ed. Gryph. 1560, p. 722., for the nursery names of the five fingers. They nearly coincide with those still denoting those useful implements in one of the Low-Norman isles, to wit, _Gros det_, _ari det (hari det?)_, _longuedon_ or _mousqueton_, _Jean des sceas_, _courtelas_. The said _Jean des sceas_ is, of course, "John of the Seals," the "annularis" or ring-finger of Macrobius and the Anglican Office-Book. Among the Hebrews [Hebrew: etsba elohim], "the finger of God," denoted His power; and it was the forefinger, among the gods of Greece and Italy, which wore the ring, the emblem of divine supremacy.

G. M.

_Marriages within ruined Churches_ (Vol. iv., p. 231.).--The beautiful old church of St. John in the Wilderness, near Exmouth, is in ruins. Having in 1850 asked the old man who points out its battered beauties, why there were still books in the reading desks, he informed me that marriages and funeral services were still performed there. This, however, is my only authority on the subject.

SELEUCUS.

_Death of Cervantes_ (Vol. iv., p. 116.).--No doubt now exists that the death of Cervantes occurred on the 23rd of April, 1616, and not the 20th of that month, which Smollett represents as the received date. In the Spanish Academy's edition, the magnificent one of 1780, as well as in that of 1797, it is so affirmed. In the former we read that on the 18th he received the sacrament of extreme unction with great calmness of spirit. It then adds:

"Igual serenidad mantuvo haste el último punto de la vida. Otorgó
testamento dexando por albaceas á su muger Doña Catalina de
Salazar, y al Licenciado Francisco Nuñez, que vivia en la misma
casa: mandó que le sepultasen en las Monjas Trinitarias; y murió á
23 del expresado mes de Abril, de edad de 68 años, 6 meses, y 14
dias."

The coincidence, however, of the renowned Spaniard's death with that of our Shakspeare, who certainly died apparently on the same day, the 23rd of April, 1616, on which, at a singularity, Mr. Frere, with others, dwells, wholly fails; for, in fact, that day in Spain corresponded not with the 23rd, but the 13th, in England. It is forgotten that the Gregorian or Reformed Calendar was then adopted in Spain, and that between it and the unreformed style of England a difference in that century existed of ten days:--thus, the execution of Charles I., in our writers, and in the Book of Common Prayer, is always dated on the 30th of January, while on the continent it is represented as on the 9th of February. The Reformed Calendar was adopted and promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582, while rejected by England, though acknowledged to be correct, until 1751, because coming from Rome. This disgraceful submission to prejudice in repudiation of a demonstrated scientific truth, practically sanctioned by a Napier, a Newton, a Halley, &c., is still pursued in the Greek church and Russian empire, where the present day, the 17th of September, is the 5th.

J. R.

Cork, Sept. 17.

_Story referred to by Jeremy Taylor_ (Vol. iv., p. 208.).--Although unable to point out the source whence Jeremy Taylor derived the story to which A. TR. alludes, I may be excused for referring your correspondent to _Don Quixote_, Part II. book III. chap. xiii., where the story, somewhat amplified, is given; but with this difference, that the staff is not broken by the injured person, but by Signor Don Sancho Panza, Governor of Barataria, before whom the case is brought for adjudication. That the story was founded on an older one may be well inferred, from its being stated that "Sancho had heard such a story told by the curate of his village; and his memory was so tenacious, in retaining everything he wanted to remember, that there was not such another in the whole island."