Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/607

 10 s. x. DEC. 26,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

501

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1908.

CONTENTS.-No. 261.

NOTES : Yule-waiting, 501 Epitaphiana, 502 The Rev. George Plaxton, 503 -Bibliography of Christmas, 505 The Fifteen O's Boy-Bishop Christmas at Selby Abbey Mistletoe Inscription over Hall Door Watch Inscrip- tionLeg growing after Death, 506 King's 'Classical Quotations' "Th 1 Owd Lad " = The Devil "Lese- Majeste"": " Republic "Claret, 507.

QUERIES : Christmas Day and Lady Day Milton : Por- trait as a Boy' Folkestone Fiery Serpent,' 508 Names terrible to Children Field Memorials to Sportsmen Gainsborough's Wife Joanna Southcott and the Black Pig Carlyle on the Griffin : Hippogriff, 509" Old King Cole "John Holloway, M.P. for Wallingford Authors of Quotations Wanted " Y-called ": "Y-coled," 510 " He which drinketh well," 511.

REPLIES: The Tenth Wave, 511 Ancaster Special Jurisdiction, 512-Sir Arthur Leary Pigott, 513-Justice Hayes's ' Elegy written in the Temple Gardens ' Authors of Quotations Wanted Pimlico : Eyebright, 514 Extra- ordinary Contemporary Animals Meets of Hounds -announced in Church Shakespeare Visitors' Books Seventeenth-Century Quotations Bridal Stone, 515 Raid of the Bishop of Norwich "Dear" : "O dear no !" Prebendary Henry Barnewell Brembre or Brambre, 516 Ebenezer Gerard Guppy "His end was peace" Booth of Rame. 517 Peter de Montfort Jeffrey Hudson the Dwarf Suffragettes Man in the Moon M. Homais Cardinal Erskine, 518.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Joseph Skipsey ' ' Who's Who' 'The Englishwoman's Year-Book ' ' The Writers' Year- Book ' Whitaker's Almanack and Peerage.

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

Jtobi.

YULE-WAITING.

AMONG the various services which in 1183
 * some tenants of the Bishop of Durham's

manors had to perform was that of yolwayt- ing (' Boldon Book,' Surtees Soc., 20, 22) a duty which in the fourteenth century was compounded for by a payment in money : 41 Yholwayting. lidem tenentes reddunt per annum pro yolwayting, ad festum Nativi- tatis Domini, 5s." (' Bishop Hatfield's Survey,' Surtees Soc., 22). ' The Domesday of St. Paul's,' dated 1222, informs us that this service consisted in keeping watch about the lord's court during the Christmas season : " Et vigilabit circa curiam domini una nocte Nath' ad cibum domini" ('Domes- day of St. Paul's,' 34). The mode in which it was kept is thus described in a manuscript belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's :

" John Aldred, a customary tenant, was bound with the other tenants of the same rank to provide

at one of them should keep watch at the court

rom Christmas to Twelfth day, and have a good

fire in the Hall, one white loaf, one cooked dish

< ferculum coquince), and a gallon of ale ; and if any

"damage were done, he that watched was to make it

good, unless he had raised the hue and cry for the village to go in pursuit." Op. cit., p. Ixxiii.

Hunter in his ' Hallamshire,' 1819, p. 272, says :

" There is a tradition among the inhabitants of Wadsley [near Sheffield] that the ancient owners of the nail were accustomed to entertain twelve men and their horses every Christmas for twelve days ; and that at their departure each man was expected to stick a large pin or needle in the mantle-tree."

This is a good example of the value of tradition, for the facts are substantially correct. The pins stuck in the mantle- tree seem to have been intended to number the days as they passed, like a rude calendar.

It was necessary to watch the lord's hall during the twelve days succeeding Christmas Day because those days were a period of unbridled licence. The following extract from a register kept in York will show that at this season all kinds of vagabonds were befriended and encouraged :

"The sheriffs of the city of York have antiently used on St. Thomas's day the apostle before Yoole, at toll of the bell to come to Allhallows kirk in the Pavement, and there to hear a mass of St. Thomas at the high quiere, and to offer at the mass ; and when mass was done to make proclamation at the pillory of the Yoole-girthol, in the form that follows by their serjeant, &c. :

"'We command that the peace of our lord the king be well keeped and mayntayned by night and day, &c., prout solebat in prodamatione prosdict' vicecomitum in eorum equitatione. Also that all manner of whores, thieves, dice-players, and all other unthrifty folk be wellcome to the towne, whether they come late or early, at the reverence of the high feaste of Yoole, till the twelve days be passed.'

" The proclamation made in form aforesaid, the fower Serjeants shall go and ride, whither they will, and one of them shall have a home of brass of the toll-boothe, and the other three Serjeants shall have each of them a home, and so go forth to the fower barrs of the citty and blow the youle-girthe ; and the sheriffs for that day use to goe together, they and their wives, and their officers, at the reverence of the high feast of Yoole, at their proper costs," &c. Drake's ' Eboracum,' 1736, p. 197.

Youle-girihe is the Icelandic Jola-grift, which, according to Vigfusson, is identical in meaning with Jola-friftr, Yule-peace, sanctity. The heathen Yule was a great merry-making, and lasted thirteen days.

It is remarkable that only two or three of the manors of the Bishop of Durham and of the Canons of St. Paul's are described as being liable to the service of Yule-waiting, or Yule-watching.

St. Thomas's Day, when the merry- making at York began, was the 21st of December ; the Saturnalia of ancient Rome