Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/47

 10 s. x. JULY ii, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the faithful chanticleer was removed from his sphere of high duty and placed on board the ill-omened vessel. At the usual hour the following night, it is almost unnecessary to add, the meteor floated downwards as before; and, as these was no protesting voice to drive the evil thing afar, it descended into the stackyard and straightway con- sumed it to ashes. THOMAS BAYNE.

CORNISH AND OTHER APPARITIONS (10 S. ix. 325, 392). It may be worth putting on record, in these days of vanishing folk- tales, that in my youth in North Antrim rsuch tales as Mr. Drew's were often told. 'There was, however, this difference, that the strange creature seen in certain carefully avoided spots was not, like the Cornish monster, passing on its way, but rolling in .agony on the ground.

I recall one field off the high road to Coleraine, which certainly contained some- thing sinister, for our horses could never pass it without shying, and we were generally ^driven by a roundabout way to avoid it. I have often, when riding alone, seen my liorse's ears pricked, and known him to shy, when I, despising the terrors of Irish ser- vants, rode past the haunted field. Every horse in the stable, whether drawing a heavy load or light cart, was equally terrified, .and more than once I have known them to bolt.

The account we were always given was that they could see by daylight what men -could only see by night, namely, a great, Tough, dark animal with burning eyes, rolling over and over on the grass. It was believed to be a soul in torment, but I never Tieard any legend as to why that small and uninteresting field was the scene of its agony. One might fancy that horses, being very sen- rsitive as to the presence of a dead member of their own species, may have been conscious of one buried there. But as the same signs of distress were shown by all our horses, and those of our neighbours, for many years, this explanation does not fit the case.

Another North Antrim tale bears on this "form of apparition. I was told by a very respectable young woman that she and her widowed mother started very early one ^summer morning to help to stack peat in a bog some miles from their home a very poor one. They sat down to rest and eat their oaten bread on the turf dyke that bordered a lonely mountain road. As they sat they heard behind them a horrible growl- ing noise and a rushing sound, and before they could move a great animal rolled over

the dyke behind them, almost touching them, and sending out a fiery heat as it rolled across the road and into a field beyond, where iii plunged about as if in torture, showing its burning eyes as it writhed about. Believing it to be a soul in torment, whose sins were too terrible for the ordinary punishment, they/ prayed for it as soon as they recovered from their fright, the memory of which never left them. They were told it was always to be seen there, and had done some odious crime " in the auld ancient^ days " that rendered it " past praying for."

I may add that the date of these appear- ances was in the seventies, and that people now living can vouch for them. Y. TJ

[Reply from W. P. CA. next week.]

HIPPOCRATES LEGEND (10 S. ix. 408). There would seem to be some connexion between this legend and a passage in the thirteenth of the spurious epistles of Hippo- crates, where Hippocrates, who has been called to Abdera to attend Democritus, begs his friend Dionysius to keep an eye on his wife during his absence, not that he has any special reason to suspect her, but because women always want watching. Rabelais refers to this in bk. iii. chap. 32. EDWARD BENSLY.

BOOKS BY THE TON (10 S. ix. 286). I can beat this easily. In 1906 I purchased the library of a Mechanics' Institute (some three tons eleven hundredweight) for 3?. 10s. The majority of the books were in cellars adjoining the boilers of the heating appa- ratus. The dirt of years, and damp owing to railway carriage in open trucks, did not improve the temper of those who spent weary hours sorting the good from the baa. I have selected about a hundred for my library, and the rest have been given away or sold in ton lots. HERBERT SOUTHAM.

Shrewsbury.

" ABRACADABRA " (10 S. ix. 467). The annotator of Butler's 'Hudibras' (Bonn, 1859, vol. ii. p. 223, note) says :

" The word abracadabra for fevers is as old as Sammonicus. Haut haut hista pista vista -were recommended for a sprain by Cato; and Homer relates that the sons of Autolycus stopped the bleeding of Ulysses' wound by a charm. Soothing medicines are still called carminatives, from the Latin carmen, a magic formula." Melton, in his ' Astrologaster,' p. 45, gives a catalogue of many superstitious ceremonies, &c., the second of which is " that toothaches, agues, cramps, and fevers, and many other diseases may be healed by mumbling a few