Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/154

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

146


NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. IL AUG. 20, w.


lour, for greviously wounding Williar Lordyng." The endorsement records tha the defendants were admitted to bail, them selves in twenty marks each, and four sure ties for each defendant in ten marks each.

What the eventual result of this charg may have been I have not attempted t investigate ; but by this document we dis tinctly carry back "Anthony Clerke, sta cioner," five years anterior to Prof. Arber' date. W. H. ALLNUTT.

Oxford.

LION. I think we may safely set down this interesting name as being of ancien Egyptian origin. Some works on the alphabe say that the hieroglyphic for L was a lion More strictly, it was a lioness, as is easil; seen by observing the hieroglyphic figure the neck is smooth, and there is no mane Champollion, 'Diet. Egyptien,' 1841, p. 114 gives labo, labai, a lioness, written in Coptic characters. Peyron's ' Coptic Dictionary, p. 78, gives laboi, a lioness. Brugsch, 'Grarn- maire Demotique,' 1855, p. 23, gives labai, a lioness, in Coptic characters, but, in trans- literating into Roman type, gives the form as LA WAI. This suggests that the Gk. Aenui/a, a lioness, was formed from LAWAI by adding the common fern, suffix -i', for the purpose of declension. Perhaps the form Xeuv was suggested by labo (above). The curious genitive Aeoi/ros may have been due to association with present participles in -wv. The Hebrew forms lebi, Idbly, are also of Egyptian origin, as Prellwitz suggests.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

EPITAPH AT HAREFIELD. I am indebted to a friend for the following epitaph on a tablet on the north wall of Harefield Church :

" W m Ashby of Breakspears Esq. erected this to the memory of his faithfull servant Robert Mossen- dew, who departed this life February the 5 th 1744 Aged 60.

In frost & snow, thro' hail & rain, He scour' d the woods & rul'd the plain; The steady pointer leads the way, Stands at the Scent, then springs the prey, The timorous birds from stubble rise, With pinions stretched, divide the skys, The scatter'd Lead pursues the Sight, And Death in thunder stops their flight. His spaniel of true English kind, Who's gratitude inflam'd his mind, This Servant in an honest way In all his actions copy'd Tray."

CELER ET AUDAX.

DR. IRON-BEARD AND AESCULAPIUS. Mr. Frazer in his ' Golden Bough ' (vol. i. p. 249) mentions Dr. Iron-Beard as a mythical figure of folk-lore, like ^Esculapius of ancient Greek


mythology, a physician who pretended to restore the slain man-god, or king of the wood, in springtime to life again. With regard to the German prototype of this " Dr. Iron-Beard," viz., " Eisenbart," it may be worth while recording that the celebrated students' song on "Dr. Eisenbart," known and sung since 1745, does not refer to a mythical person, but to an eminent physician and surgeon, Andreas Eisenbart, who lived from 1661 till 1727, as a tombstone over his grave at Miinden tells us. Soon after his death a humorous and famous song, applied to his significant name, appears to have arisen among students, the first stanza of which runs as follows :

Ich bin der Dr. Eisenbart, Kurir' die Leut' nach meiner Art, Kami machen dass die Blinden yehn, Und dass die Lahmen ivieder sehn.

It was evidently a mock song against itine- rant quack doctors and charlatans of the time, and has been adopted as a comic song in France as well, " Je suis le Docteur Isem- hert " ('S. Volkstumliche Lieder,' ed. Bohme, 1895). H. KREBS.

Oxford.

THE WELSH LEEK. The following letter appeared in the Daily Mail of 28 February :

"What is the national emblem of Wales? The eek, undoubtedly. But surely not the obnoxious jdible leek. There is in Wales I have seen it lowhere else a beautiful pink flower which grows n great profusion on the sea coast. Its name is 3eninen-y-M6r (the sea leek), Ceninen being the Welsh for leek. How the table leek came to be /ailed Ceninen I cannot even conjecture, but that he sea leek is and was the emblem of Wales there an be little doubt. Did St. David live in what we aow call Pembrokeshire, no flower would be more amiliar and probably more loved by him than Y }eninen-y-M6r, which grows so plentifully on the ugged, storm-beaten rocks of St. David's Head."

C. SAYLE. Cambridge.

"THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH." I had a great hock recently when I found in my Times, in he first leading article, upon the war, two of he most atrocious specimens of servants' all English I have ever seen in any news- ape r. On p. 11 I found the following : Whether the Spanish ships were ever full p with coal." Lower down in the same olumn I found : " If the Spanish people do ot understand that much." If these things e done in the green tree, what shall be done

the dry ? X. Y. Z.

TENNYSON AND SCOTT. In the July number f Longman's appear some ' Reminiscences of Few Days spent at a. Country House with