(@ writs.
\VE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
" OORLOG," DUTCH FOR " WAR." The primal sense of oorlog, i.e., " war " in Dutch (besides its synonym krijg) = orloge and orlage in Old Duteh, has still remained ob- scure and questionable. Its Old Norse cognate orlog and orlygi, together with Swedish orlog and Danish orlog (esp. warfare at sea), is interpreted by G. Vigfusson, in his ' Icelandic-English Dictionary ' (1873) = fate, weird, fj.oipa, conceived as coming in or by war. But does this supposed original meaning equally apply to the Old Dutch cognate orloge, orlage, and Modern Dutch oorlog ? Neither Franck's ' Etymological Dutch Dictionary,' ed. Van Wijk (1912), nor Verwijs and Verdam's Middle Dutch ' Wbordenboek ' (in vol. v., 1903), accepts that explanation, but both regard it as doubtful. Would it be more reasonable to presume that the primitive sense of orloge and orlage may have indicated a state or condition outside the fixed law, a transgression of the lawful state ? Perhaps some of your contributors might help to elucidate this obscure term. I see in Clark- Hall's and Henry Sweet's Anglo- Saxon Dictionaries of 1894 and 1897, that the Anglo-Saxon corresponding word orleg is rendered by (1) fate, (2) contest, war (sic Clark-Hall), and only by hostility or war (sic H. Sweet). H. KREBS.
WILLIAM HOLLOWAY, AUTHOR OF ' THE PEASANT'S FATE.' This- little book, pub- lished by Vernor & Hood in 1802, has lately come into my possession. It is produced in the best style as regards paper and print, and contains four fine copperplate illus- trations engraved by Ridley : the frontispiece after Corbould, and the three others after E. M. Thomson. This particular copy of Holloway's work is bound up with Robert Bloomfield's ' Tales,' &c., 1801. The binding (contemporary) is very fine, straight-grained crimson morocco, richly and beautifully tooled. Being curious to learn something of a poet treated in his own day to such external honours, I searched, but in vain, for some account of him in the ' D.N.B.,' Allibone, Chambers, and Lang. At length in turning over the pages of Pickering's " Aldine Edition " (Lond., 1830) of Henry Kirke White's poetical works, I found at the end of that book a collection of ' Tributarv
Verses ' to the memory of " unhappy White.'"
Of nearly all the authors of these tributary
verses the names are still remembered e.g. f
Capel Lofft, Josiah Conder. Amongst the
number I find William Holloway, whose
contribution (in six stanzas, dated London,
Feb. 27, 1808) is called ' Reflections oa
Reading the Life of the late Henry Kirke
White,' by " William Holloway, author of
' The Peasant's Fate.' " This circumstance
has again aroused my curiosity to learn
something about Holloway. Can any of
your readers enlighten me ?
From certain of his miscellaneous poems it would seem that he had some connexion. with Weymouth. L. A. W.
Dublin.
FIREPLACES : AITCH STONES, FORD, NORTHUMBERLAND. I find the following passage on p. 117 in ' A Corner in the North ' (1909), by Hastings M. Neville, Rector of Ford, Northumberland :
" It may be worth while to record a curious* thing 1 was told by a cottager of this village. She said there used to he a stone built in at the back of her fireplace called an ' aitch ' stone, but that when the fireplace was altered it was thrown away into the wood, where it still was. She said there was one of these stones in other cottages also. In the days of the Border raids the ' aitch ' stone, by emitting some peculiar sound, gave warning to the villagers of the approach of the raiders as they came across the Till over the bridge. The woman died soon after this, so that I was unable to ask her more about it, but I have since heard the same- thing from another resident in the village in connexion with another of the oldest of tha thatched cottages."
Mr. Neville adds in a note :
" I have spelt the word as I heard it pronounced, but probably the right word is ' echo.' "
Can any correspondent of ' N. & Q.' tell* me whether such stones were formerly used on other parts of the Border, or elsewhere ?
B. L. R. C.
FORD CASTLE was anciently in the barony of Chillingham , N orth Northumberland . Can. any reader give me information as to the name of its founder and as to his wife and family ? Ford Castle was built in 1287
At a book sale many years ago, I remember seeing exposed a copy of an old volume giving views of castles in England, which I believe, contained a woodcut of Ford Castle, as a ruin.
The fabric was restored by (I think) the Marquis of Waterford in 1863, so that the book referred to must have been published before then. P. G.
