Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/300

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NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. XL MAK. 27, im

A curious Shakespearian parallel may be quoted from the same collection (p. 67) : O f'anwylyd dywed imi, P'le mae gwreiddyn ffynnon ffansi, Ai yn dy gorff, ai yn dy galon, Ai yn dy Ian wynepryd tirion ?

That is :

O my beloved, tell me,

Where is the root of the spring of fancy ?

Is it in thy body, or in thy heart,

Or in thy fair sweet face ? Both poems are anonymous, and pre- sumably of popular origin. H. I. B.

' HENRY VI.,' PART III., II. v. (10 S. xi. 85). The incident of a father killing his son, or a son his father, on the field of battle, neither of them being aware of it, is common in folk-lore. It is the theme, for instance, of the old German poem of ' Hildebrand and Hadubrand.' Another and still more famous version of the story is the Persian one of Sohrab and Rustem, one of the most admired episodes in the ' Shah-Nameh ' of Firdousi.

In the Slavonic literatures I have ob- served a particular fondness for this plot. There is a Russian legend in which the Cossack Ilya Murometz kills his son ; and another one in which " King Saul " nearly kills his son Constantine in single combat, but recognizes him before it is too late. There is a ballad which makes King Matthias Oorvinus kill his son Marko ; and in a Servian popular song there is an amusing scene where George Senkovic, thirsting for blood, pursues his son Ivo, under the im- pression that he is a Turkish Aga who had challenged him to a duel.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS.

THE ' Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana por la Real Academia Espanola,' Madrid, 1884, gives Patagon, native of Patagonia ; belonging to this region of South America. It does not say anything about big feet.

Nemesio Fernandez Cuesta, ' Diccionario Enciclop&lico de la Lengua Espanola,' Madrid, 1872, says Patagon is applied to Patagonia and its inhabitants ; a native of Patagonia. Paton and patudo mean large ieet. Pata = hind foot of an animal ; some- times applied to men.

The Portuguese seaman Fernando de Magallanes, being then in the Spanish service, discovered the strait between South America (Patagonia) on the north, and Tierra del Fuego on the south, and named

it Todos los Santos. The expedition reached the Pacific, so called by Magellan, on 28 Nov., 1520.

Isaac Taylor, ' Words and Places ' London, 1882, p. 321, says : " The Patagonians were so called by Magellan from their clumsy shoes."

Keith Johnston, ' Physical, Historical, Political, and Descriptive Geography,' London, Edward Stanford, 1908, p. 51, says :

" The harbour of San Julian, where Magellan's expedition wintered (1520), is memorable also as the place at which the name Patagones (big feet) was given to the natives by the apparent size of their extremities when covered up in skins ; and this name has extended, in the form of Patagonia, to the south-east land of America."

The earliest writers tell us that the Patagonians were giants seven or eight feet high, and necessarily would have big feet.

Hakluyt, ' English Voyages,' Glasgow, 1904, vol. xi. p. 256, says : " Yet are they very mightie men of bodie of ten or eleven feet high."

' Purchas His Pilgrimes,' Glasgow, 1905, vol. ii. p. 87, says : " This giant was so big, that the head of one of our men, of meane stature, came but to his Waste."

Later writers say that the natives are from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft. tall, some of, them 6 ft. 2 in. They are very large, muscular men, which may make them look bigger. And it was necessary to account for the name Patagones. It seems rather that the people were named after the country, and not the country after the people, as is often the case.

Darwin, in his ' Naturalist's Voyage round the World,' London, 1876, a most interesting book, writing at pp. 172, 181, of the geo- logical formation of Patagonia speaks of " terraces." Patagones is a Quichua word and means terraces ; pata, a terrace, and cuna, the plural ending.

Dr. Luciano Abeille, ' Idioma Nacional de los Argentines,' Paris, 1900, p. 88, has :

" Patagonia, del quich. pata, colina, cuna, es una particula que se agrega, a los nombres para formar el plural y significa los, las. De donde Patagonia quiere decir : Las colinas."

" [Patagonia, from the Quichua : pata= terrace, cuna= a particle that is added to nouns to form the plural, and means the.} ' '

Sir Clements R. Markham, ' Contributions towards a Grammar and Dictionary of Quichua, the Language of the Yncas of Peru,' London, Triibner & Co., 1864, p. 154, says that pata means hill, step, bench ; p. 88, that cuna is^the usual plural ending of nouns.