Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/159

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g* s. xii. AUG. 22, urn] NOTES AND QUERIES.


151


hair, S. Sueo-Gothic, or ancient language of Sweden, reda, explicare, is used in both these senses.

" To red, redd, rede, rid, v.a. 1. To clear ; to put in order ; as ' to red the road,' to clear the way; ' to red up one's self,' to dress ; ' to red up a house,' to put it in order; 'to red marches,' to fix boundaries, also to compose differences, S. Wynt.

"2. To clear in the way of opening ; to free from anything that stuffs or closes up ; as, ' to red a syvour,' to clear a drain; 'to red the brain,' or head, to free it from hardened snot, S. W. Beattie.

" 3. To part combatants : also, ' to red a pley,' to settle a broil, S. ' Chr. Kirk.'

"Red, redd, s. 1. Clearance. Wallace. 2. Order, S. Icelandic raud, having the same signification. 3.!Rubbish, S. Balf., Tract.'

"Red, redd, part, adj. 1. Put in order, S. Anglo-Saxon hraed, paratus. 2. Clear; not closed up; not stuffed, S. 3. Used as English ready, North of Scotland. 4. Distinct; opposed to con- fusion, ibid.

" To red, v.a. 1. To disencumber : English rid. Knox. 2. To rescue from destruction. Barbour, 'Guy Mann.' 3. Denoting the act of persons who remove from a place. Keith. Sueo-Gothic raedd-a, Anglo-S'Axonhredd-an, liberare."' A Dictionary of the Scottish Language,' by John Jamieson, abridged by John Johnstoue, 1846.

S. means Scottish, Scotland. It also denotes that a word is still used in Scotland (p. vii). The dictionary gives also to red, to guess, &c. ; to red, rede, to counsel ; to red, rede, read, to explain, as " to red a riddle " ; red, riddance ; to red, to overpower ; red, afraid ; red, redd, spawn, or the place where fish deposit spawn ; to red, to spawn ; red, rid, free ; red, the green ooze found at the bottom of pools ; to out-red, to extricate, &c. ; outred, outredding, rubbish, &c. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

DIALECTAL WORD FOR "SEE-SAW" (9 fch S. xii. 89). I think the child may have said hightle or itle. In his * Glossary of Words used in South-West Lincolnshire' (E.D.S.) Cole gives :

" Higlit or hightle, v. To dandle or move up and down : as of a child, ' Just hight it up and down a bit'; ' He wants highting, his grandmother hights him'; 'She was hightling the bairn on her foot'; ' They were hightling one another on a pole.' Or to a child, * You want to be always on the hightle.' "

The'KD.D.'has:

"Itle, v., Lin. To have an uncertain footing ; to sway to and fro, S. Lin. ' See how he itles \ The baans wor itlin' on them high raals in sich a waa thay ommost maade mi heart com i' mi mouth.' "

I am sure I knew all about a hightle when I was young and in Arcadia by which I mean South-West Lincolnshire but the mist of years hangs between then and now, and I may be wrong in thinking that the hightle was an elastic plank raised from the ground by a support at either end, and that children got fun out of it by jumping about on the board midway between the two. It was less


dangerous than the balanced piece of wood which formed the see-saw. ST. SWITHIN.

In North-West Lincolnshire a see-saw is frequently termed a flighty -tight, a highty- tighter, or highty. In some parts of Yorkshire it appears to have another name. My friend Miss W. M. E. Fowler informs me that at Old Sharleston, near Wakefield, it is known as a ranty, which name is also given to the swing- boats at a fair. A child who frequently stands on the middle of the see-saw to balance it is called the candlestick ; hence, perhaps, the words of the ring-game :

She can hop, she can skip, She can turn the candlestick,

the turning referring to her change of attitude as she twists to right or left.

MABEL PEACOCK.

  • NOTES AND QUERIES ' : EARLY REFERENCE

(9 th S. xi. 265).

" Our Sumatra Correspondence. This island is now the property of the Stamford family, having

been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir Stamford,

during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (un- fortunately not yet answered) contained in the Notes and Queries." Holmes, 'Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table' (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1858, i. 622).

ADRIAN WHEELER.

Miss CHARLOTTE WALPOLE (9 th S. xii. 128). Miss Nancy Wai pole, the pretty actress of Drury Lane Theatre, married Edward Atkyns, Esq., of Ketteringham Hall, Norfolk. Where shall I find a portrait of the lady, taken either before or after her marriage 1

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

[In Myers & Rogers's 'Catalogue' (1903) appears Mrs. Atkin, actress, printed in brown, 8vo, 2s., engraved by Mackenzie.]

ENEAS SILVIUS (9 th S. xii. 68). In Cata- logue 35, issued in 1896, Olschki, the Venetian publisher, advertised a copy of this edition of the ' Historia Bohemica ' of Eneas Silvius, the poet, afterwards Pius II., for 225 francs. This is the first of three editions published in the fifteenth century. The early editions are considered the best, because in the later ones the Bohemian names have been altered, but not improved.

The two Germans, Johannes Nicolaus Hanheymer, of Oppenheim, and Johannes Schurener, of Boppard, who printed the 1475 edition at Rome with their first types, printed only two dated books in partnership : the 'Formularium Instrumentorum,' 25 Nov., 1474 (Hain, *7280), and the present work, pub- lished 10 Jan., 1475. Schurener printed more