Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/523

 i. MAY 23, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

431

book seems to have been popular, as my copy is one of the fifth edition, was published by John Murray in 1820, and was written by Sir Thomas Bernard, a very philanthropic man, who died in 1816. The speaker is John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, who died in his ninety-third year in 1743 :

"If you will not accuse me of Egotism, I will mention a circumstance that has very lately occurred. A country neighbour and his dame dined with me on new-year's-day. She \vas in the family- icay, and during dinner was much indisposed ; they both went home as soon as they could after dinner. The next morning the husband came and informed me of the cause of her indisposition that she had longed for my silver tureen, and was in considerable danger. I was anxious that my tureen should not be the cause of endangering her life, or become a model for the shape of her child ; and immediately sent it to her. In due time she produced a chop- ping boy, and last week when I offered my con- gratulations on her recovery, I informed her that now in my turn I longed for the tureen, which I begged she would send by the bearer ; and that I would always have it ready to send her again, in case of any future longing." P. 105.

The italics are in the book. Dr. Mead, like Dr. John Freind, was an excellent Latin scholar. The idea of the book is taken from Cicero ' De Senectute,' and the circumstances recorded might have taken place.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

DICKENS QUERIES (10 th S. i. 228, 272, 298). The modern Winchester song-books do not contain ' Jarvey.' PROF. STRONG'S derivation of "biddy" was the accepted one in my time, and is also to be found in ' Winchester College Notions,' published in 1901.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

"SAL ET SALIVA" (10 th S. i. 368). The ancient Norsemen used salt in baptism, and this inscription on the font mentioned by MR. HOOPER shows that salt was also used at Ipswich. Under the word "Geifla," to mumble, the following passage from ' Biskupa Sogur,' i. 25, is quoted in Cleasby and Vigfusson's ' Icelandic-English Dictionary ' : "Goinlum kennu v4r mi Gotianum at geifla a saltinu, see how we teach the old Godi [priest] to mumble the salt." Some old English fonts have two basins, a larger one for water, and a smaller one which may have been used for salt : see an engraving of a very old font of this kind at Youlgreave in Bateman's 'Vestiges of Derbyshire,' p. 241. In my ' Household Tales and Traditional Remains,' p. 120, I have recorded the fact that /'some English people carry a plate of salt into the church at baptism. They say that a child which is baptized near salt will be sure to go to heaven." Unbaptized, and so

exposed, infants had salt put beside them for safety (Grimm's 'Deutsche Rechtsalter- thiimer,' 1854, p. 457). To sprinkle a child with water (" ausa vatni ") on giving it a name was usual among the Norsemen in the heathen age. It was regarded as a protection against danger. Thus in 'Havamal' ('Corpus Poeticum Boreale,' i. 27) we have: "Ef ek skal J>egn ungan verpa vatni a, muna<5 hann falla J>6tt hann i folk komi, if I sprinkle water on a young lord, he shall never fall though he go to battle." Hence it is pro- bable that salt also was used as a charm. In a letter to the Academy, 15 February, 1896, Dr. Whitley Stokes suggested that "the source of Christian infant baptism, like the source of Christian parthenogenesis, &c., is to be found in folk-lore," and his suggestion was supported by Mr. Clodd in a presidential address to the Folk-lore Society (Folk - lore, vii. 51, 57). So far away as Borneo water is poured over a child's head on its admission to the kindred (Folk-lore, xiii. 438). In Yorkshire soon after a child is born a drinking carousal is held; this they call " washing baby's head." In Derbyshire a ballad used to be sung at Christmas about the birth of a child who came over the sea in a ship. I have preserved the air, and as many of the words as could be remembered, in my ' Household Tales,' p. 108. The ballad contains the lines :

They washed his head in a golden bowl, In a golden bowl, in a golden bowl ; They washed his head in a golden bowl At Christmas Day in the morning.

Here the basin was of gold. Nothing is said about salt, but the child's head was wiped with a diaper towel, and combed with an ivory comb.

As regards saliva in baptism, I think I saw an English clergyman, many years ago, put his finger into his mouth, and make the sign of the cross on the child's forehead.

S. O. ADDY.

The ceremonies connected with salt and spittle at baptism are explained in the Catechismus Concilii Tridentini Pars Secunda LX.' JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

See the rubrics in the ' Ritus Baptizandi ' in the mediaeval manuals or in the modern Rituale Romanum.' Thus in Sarum (Surt. Soc., vol. Ixiii. p. 9*) :

" Benedictio Salis .ponatur de ipso sale in ore

ejus, ita dicendo : Accipe salem sapientiae," &c. ;

and p. 10*, after the Gospel,

" Deinde spuat Sacerdos in sinistra manu, et tangat aures et nares infantis cum pollice suo dextero de sputo [in modum crucis MS.] dicendo ad aurem dexteram, Effeta, quod est adaperire ; ad nares, In