436
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. NOV. 28, IMS.
who discovered a source of wealth in turn-
ing old high hats into new ones, was a
Benedick with an admiring wife, who tried
the shining cylinder on her own head.
" Fit ioramolka (queen), my dear ! " said he.
And when I explain that in " Rag Fair,"
off Houndsditch, Jewish women have for
generations carried on operations in old
clothes, old regimentals, hats, &c., and
would among themselves select, say, a hat
or a bonnet, and exclaim, in the hearing of
the simple " Goy " (Christian) buyer, in
order to attract his custom, " Look, my
dear, it 's fit for a mdlka," I can see that
moloker is correct, after all.
M. L. R. BRESLAR.
CROMWELL AND THE 117TH PSALM (10 S. x. 268). It does not follow from Carlyle's reference that he considers the Scottish metrical version of the Psalm to be that which Cromwell and his soldiers sang before the battle of Dunbar. Presumably he makes his quotation to show the spirit and the grit of the lyric, and not to indicate his belief that the words he sets down are those that were actually used on the occasion. Indeed, if he had considered the point at all, he would have remembered for Carlyle had a shrewd sense in such matters that the metrical rendering of the Psalms by Francis Rous (from which he quotes) was sanctioned by Parliament for use in Scottish churches in January, 1650, and that Dunbar was fought on 3 September of the same year. In all likelihood Cromwell and his men utilized the verses of Sternhold and Hopkins, appropriately attuning them, as the historian observes, to " Bangor or some still higher score." THOMAS BAYNE.
TH AS A SYMBOL (10 S. x. 390). DR. KRUEGER asks about the Irish pronuncia- tion of t and th. There are two things to bear in mind.
1. In Gaelic t and d are not like either EngliL'li t and d or English th, but have an intermediate sound, produced by using the back of the tongue as well as the teeth. They are, in fact, gutturo-dentals. In the true unsophisticated Irish brogue, " that you could cut with a knife," these Gaelic dentals are substituted for the English, with the result that to an English ear Irish Z sounds like our th, whereas Irish th sounds like our t. Our old authors invariably represent the Irishman as saying de and dat for the and that, and I have often heard the modern tick for thick, troat for throat, and, vice versa, thrick, sthrength. Hence arises a
good deal of confusion in the English
orthography of Gaelic names. We write-
indifferently Teague and Thady for Gaelic
Tadhg, MacCarty and MacCarthy, &c.
2. In addition to the above, the Irish also have a tendency to introduce an aspirate after consonants. The conse- quence is that we can never be quite sure,, when we meet with variants such as dudeen* dhudeen, dudheen, dhudheen, whether the* writer intended to indicate the gutturo- dental or aspirated dental. All that can safe]y be said is that he felt it different from the English. Other examples are- bostoon, bosthoon (Gaelic bastun) ; omadaun^. omadhaun (Gaelic amadan) ; poltogue, pol- thogue, ; trawneen, thrawneen, &c. The aspirate is introduced, not only after t, but also after p, b, as in the well-known bhoy for boy. JAS. PLATT, Jun.
The following information may assist DR. KRUEGER. I have a varied collection of ancient title-deeds relating to lands in various parts of Kent, about 300 of them being earlier than the reign of Henry VIL. Out of the 300, only three are in English, the remainder of course being in Latin. The earliest one is an " Indentur made att Tenterden [Kent] the laste day saue oon [save one] of Februar in the vij the yer of reige of king Edward ]> e iiij the " (1468). In this document the character ]) is used in the abbreviated forms of " the," " that," " this," " thereto,")) 6 , p, J> 8 , }>e'to ; but when the words are written in full, th is- used. In the next deed in English, 16 Ed- ward IV. (1476), the character ]) is not used ; this may be because the abbreviated forms of the words do not appear. The* latest of the three deeds in English is dated 1 Richard III. (1484), and here again " the " and " that " in their abbreviated forms are written > e , jA I am not confusing ]> with the later y : the character in question is. quite plain. PERCY MAYLAM.
Canterbury.
THE LION AND THE UNICORN (10 S. x. 208, 294). The distich in question forms the opening of an old song, the first verse of which is as follows : The lion and the imicorn were fighting for the
crown ;
The lion beat the unicorn all round the town. Some gave them white bread, and some gave them
brown ; Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out
of town.
An old lady of my acquaintance, who M aged ninety-seven, informs me that she
