378
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL MAY n, 1907.
under Monasticism ' says that the Augus-
tinian nuns or White Ladies of Gracedieu
possessed " The girdle and part of the tunic
of St. Francis, which were supposed to help
women in their confinement " (p. 449).
In the Priory of the Holy Trinity, York, there was at the time of Henry VIII. 's visitation of the religious houses a girdle believed to aid women in childbirth (' Monas- ticon Angl.,' vol. iv. p. 681). I think that other relics to which similar properties were attributed are mentioned in the same work, but after careful search have failed to find them. EDWARD PEACOCK.
Cardinal Beaton burned a woman because, when she was in labour, she invoked God and Christ, and not the B.V.M.
Also see Rabelais : " Women in travail use to find their sorrow abated when the life of St. Margaret is read unto them " (prologue to book ii. ' Gargantua and Pantagruel '). St. Margaret was the type of female innocence and meekness.
W. BRADBROOK. Bletchley.
MARLBOROUGH WHEELS : HORSES WITH FOUR WHITE FEET (10 S. vi. 386, 436 ; vii. 157). MR. NICHOLSON is right in quoting at the second reference the Intermediaire for 1904 (vol. xlix.) on Marlborough wheels. He knows probably also the answer in vol. xliv. (1901) concerning the privilege of a carter whose leading horse had four white feet. But some other notes had already appeared on the same subject in former volumes (1892) and I notice in the latter a curious reference to Cotgrave's
- Dictionary ' (1611) :
"Piedsblancs. II a lea pieds Wanes. He passes everywhere freely, or without paying ought (from a custom they have in France, to take no toll for such horses as have four white feet)." And further on :
" CTest le chercd mix qualre pied* bfanc*. May from the same reason bear the same signification."
L. P.
Paris.
'THE CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL' (10 S. i. 407, 458 ; ii. 33). In 1864 appeared an anonymous volume bearing this title (from the pen of Mr. A. C. Swinburne). It being now of considerable scarcity, I am unable to refer to a copy, or say anything as to its contents, but it may supply what MRS. STOPES seeks. WM. JAGGARD.
LONGFELLOW (10 S. vii. 201, 222, 242, 261, 282). There is one little slip which I think might be corrected in MR. JOHN C. FRANCIS'S
delightful notes. Within a few lines of
the end it is stated that Mr. Thos. Brock's
bust of Longfellow " was admitted to its
present place in the Abbey on March 2nd
1884." As a matter of fact it was unveiled
by Canon Prothero, the Sub-Dean, on
Saturday, March 1st.
Another discrepancy of date in reference to the same incident is contained in No. 7 of The Lark (February, 1884), edited by Dr. Wm. Cox Bennett, Hon. Sec. of the Longfellow Memorial Fund. On p. 55 appear Dr. Bennett's three stanzas ' On the Unveiling the Memorial Bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow placed by public subscription in the Poets' Corner, West- minster Abbey February 27th, 1884.' Was this the date originally fixed for the unveiling ? or does Dr. Bennett here refer to the actual placing of the bust before its public inauguration ?
In making this reference to " the sweetest of all singers " perhaps I may be allowed to add that in the year of his death Long- fellow kindly added his autograph to my collection. It reached me, by a curious coincidence, on his seventy-fifth birthday, 27 February, 1882. In less than a month afterwards he had passed over to the great majority. JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
" KINGSLEY'S STAND" (10 S. vii. 109,. 158, 294). Referring to the 20th Regiment of the Line, Kinglake, in his ' History of the Crimean War,' vol. v., when describing the battle of Inkerman, speaks of this regiment as having charged their foes at the battle of Minden with a mighty shout, henceforth known as the " Minden yell." He adds that regimental tradition is said to keep up by constant practice this " strange and un- earthly " sound ; the 20th had not used it in the field since the great days of the Peninsula, but they now used it at Inkerman.
Can any of your readers inform me whether this last statement is correct, and if the shout is still practised ?
WATSON SURR.
STEP-DANCES (10 S. vii. 269). There were many men step-dancers, and a few w r omen ones, well into the later half of the- nineteenth century in most villages, and step-dancing displays were usual incidents at feasts and wakes. On Saturday nights also "stepping" would suddenly break out at village ale-houses, when two or- three men would pit themselves against each other in short spells, hardly of the' nature of contests. When a lad I saw
