104
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. AUG. s, im.
sunlight, roses, and wine. Here are a few
stanzas, crudely transcribed, of the poem
entitled 'Come, my Friend, to meet thy
Brides-
Let us forth to greet the Sabbath,
Source and spring of all our blessings,
In the days of old appointed,
Last 'twas made, though ordered first.
Come, my friend, to meet thy Bride
And thy Sabbath greetings give.
Regal City, royal Temple, Rise resplendent from thine ashes ; Tears enough thine eyes have reddened, Rise, forget thy years of mourning. Come, my friend, to meet thy Bride And thy Sabbath greetings give.
Cast away the grime of ages And to raiment gay betake thee, For thy soul shall find salvation Through Bethlehem's son of Jesse. Come, my friend, &c.
Weep no more : away all wailing ; Why so downcast and distracted ? Soon thy sons will rally round thee And thy City be rebuilded. Come, my friend, &c.
Come in peace, thou Crown of Women,
Come with joy and come with gladness
To the faithful, to the chosen
Sons of Jacob ! Come, Bride.
Come, my friend, to meet thy Bride And thy Sabbath greetings give.
M. L. R. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.
FARJEON. The death of this esteemed
novelist, a companion of mine in his youth,
affords me the opportunity of tracing his
origin. He was a scion of a notable Spanish
family, driven into exile in 1492 The original
name of the family was the Hebrew jims,
signifying a blossom. In transliterating it
the first letter assumed two forms with their
variants viz., Parchon, Pharchon, Farchon,
Farchon, &c. In later times it settled down
in the new form Farjeon. Salomon ben
Abraham Parchon was a famous grammarian
and lexicographer living in Calatayud anno
1160, and Farchon Cohen was a contem-
porary poet in Cordova. On his mother's
side the late novelist was a cousin of Mr.
Sidney Lee. M. D. DAVIS.
" POLDAVY." In Nares's ' Glossary ' we find, " Polldavy or Poledavy, a sort of coarse canvas." It occurs in Ho well's 'Letters,' in Cleveland, and in Taylor's 'Works,' as the quotations there given show.
There is a good example in Amber's ' Eng- lish Garner,' ii. 166, where we find mention of money being spent in Brittany "in all sorts of canvas with other small wares, and
in lockromes, viterie, and dowlass, Pouldavis,
Olyraunce, &c." The 'Century Dictionary 3
gives poldavis and poledavy, also pouldavies,
and remarks that the origin is obscure.
I do not think it is very difficult. Seeing that lockram and dowlas are both named from places in Brittany, the chances are that
n^iavy is of similar origin. Indeed, I think ave seen this suggestion somewhere, but I cannot remember where ; and I have never seen any proof of it. After a search in several maps I failed to find any such place, but reference to a French gazetteer was quite successful.
There is a fairly good gazetteer entitled
- Dictionnaire Geographique de la France,' by
Joanne. We there find that Pouldavid is the name of a very small place, containing only 250 inhabitants, in the commune of Pouldergat, in the department of Finisterre ; and there is also a little river named Poul- david, which runs into the sea near DoUarne- nez the last - named place is in Black's ' Atlas ' so that it is not far from Daoulas, which we spell Dowlas. As the Breton for " pool " is poull, the signification of the name is obviously "David's pool."
The first syllable should be written pol- or poul-, not pole- or poll-.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
CRUCIFORM TOWNS. It has been stated that Bishop's Stortford was built on a cruci- form plan. The same may, I think, be said of Wells. To look abroad, Aracena, in the Provihcia de Huelva, Spain, is very distinctly laid out in the shape of a Latin. cross, and was probably planned thus intentionally, in order to commemorate the expulsion of the Moors, E. S. DODGSON.
OMER : HOMER. Notwithstanding Exod. xvi. 36, compared with Ezek. xlv. 11, Cruden appears to have confounded the Hebrew omer with'a homer, the latter as a measure contain- ing a hundred times as much as the former. The word omer, indeed, does not occur in Cruden at all ; but under ephah he says, " Exod. xvi. 36, an homer is the tenth part of an e" The word homer should be omer ; but the latter does not occur subsequently in our version. In the original it appears not as a measure, but in the sense of "a sheaf" (the R.V- retains that rendering), in Leviti- cus xxiii. 10, 11, 15. Presumably to avoid the risk of an homer being misunderstood for an omer, the Revisers in Is. v. 10 have inserted the word "but" before an ' ; ephah." For an omer of seed to yield an ephah would indicate not great scarcity (which is here intended), but great productiveness. But
