Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/405

 i. APRIL 23, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

333

Retire at Madrid, mentioned by Miss Higgin, attracted the attention of Beckford in 1787 ('Spain,' Letter xvi.). E. E. STREET.

DORSETSHIRE SNAKE-LORE (10 th S. i. 168, 253). Compare two passages in Hardy's 4 Return of the Native.' In a chapter called 'The Closed Door 'Mrs. Yeobright, on her sultry journey across Egdon Heath, has been bitten by an adder, and the remedy recommended by the rustics is oil from frying the fat of other adders :

44 ' I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,' said Sam. ' These limp ones are two I killed to-day at work ; but as they don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat.' " P. 299, new edition.

"'Well, it is a very ancient remedy the only remedy of the viper-catchers, I believe,' replied the doctor. ' It is mentioned as an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and, I think, the Abbe Fontana. Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as anything you could do ; though I question if some other oils would not have been equally efficacious.' " New edition, p. 307.

The remedy was in vain : Mrs. Yeobright died. The scene is apparently in Dorset, and the story is a repertory of old provincial manners and customs.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Xewbourue Rectory, Woodbridge.

The belief that a snake can only die after sundown appears to be shared by educated as well as uneducated people. A corre- spondent writing from Georgia, U.S., says :

<; We killed a large black snake very early in the morning one day last September. When we passed it shortly before sundown it was still moving and evidently alive, and it was not till the sun had gone down that all motion ceased. The negroes all say that a snake can only die at nightfall, and it looks as though that might be true."

I have heard the same statement made in Virginia, as well as other parts of the South. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

The belief that a snake never dies till after sunset is likewise common in the United States among children and superstitious adults. It matters not how much a snake's body may be mutilated, the belief is firm that its tail will show active evidence of life till the sun disappears below the horizon. I had always assumed that this superstition had its origin among the American Indians, but it is now interesting to note its existence elsewhere. CHARLES BUNDY WILSON.

State University of Iowa, Iowa City.

CROUCH THE MUSICAL COMPOSER (10 th S. i. 248). In the words of the song to which he set the music, "it may be for years and it may be for ever " that ' Kathleen Mavour-

neen' will live in the heart of the lover of Irish melodies. It was one of ' The Echoes of the Lakes,' published about 1838. Crouch wrote the music of two operas, 'Sir Roger de Coverley ' and ' The Fifth of November, 1670.' He published ' Songs of Erin,' ' Echoes of the Past,' ' Bardic Reminiscences,' ' Songs of the Olden Time,' 'Songs of a Rambler,' ' Wayside Melodies,' and many detached songs by various writers, which in their day had great popularity, and which will be found duly recorded in the Music Catalogue of the British Museum. See also Brown and Strat- ton's ' British Musical Biography,' 1897. One of his latest songs was ' Donna Dear.'

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

IMAGINARY OR INVENTED SAINTS (9 th S. xiu 127, 215, 369, 515 ; 10^ S. i. 159). Saint Ubes, the seamen's corruption of Setubal, a well- known port eighteen miles south of Lisbon, may be included in the list.

A note in Black's 'Guide to Cornwall,' com- piled by A. R. Hope Moncrieff, may also be of interest, not only as giving a new synonym for the Blessed Virgin Mary, but also as furnishing a possible explanation of the dedication of St. Margaret Moses, which appears in the old lists of City churches. Writing on the subject of the "Furry Dance" on 8 May at Helston, the compiler quotes the following verse from the " Furry Tune," sung during the ceremony :

God bless Aunt Mary Moses, With all her power and might, O, And send us peace in merry England Both by day and night, 0.

A note adds that this verse is explained by Mr. H. Jenner, of the British Museum, as referring to the B. V. Mary, in Cornish " Mary Moivse." It is, of course, well known that some of the earliest dedications of churches were to the virgin saints, who figure so prominently in the Roman Liturgy, and it is possible, therefore, that St. Margaret Moses may preserve the memory of a pre-Saxon dedication. H. 2.

ARCHITECTURE IN OLD TIMES (10 th S. i. 290). In all but the output of the most ancient, i.e., archaic art, and frequently even in examples of that, MR. FORD may find that artistic enthusiasm, if not religious sacrifice, compelled finishing to the utmost the sculp- tures that adorned antique buildings. The statues from the Parthenon, now in the British Museum, are as elaborate and fine in their backs, which were never seen in situ, as in their fronts which faced spectators ; the bas- reliefs of the frieze on that building were executed without stint of knowledge and