Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/429

 10 s. XL MAY i, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

353

German manufacturer, has no etymological significance, and should not be confused, as it is occasionally, with asperigin, the active principle of asparagus. M.D.

[C. C. B. arid MR. F. HOWARD COLLINS also thanked for replies.]

TENNYSON CONCOBDANCES (10 S. xi. 261). To the information concerning William Brightwell given by MB. RALPH THOMAS I am able to make a small addition. Some fifty years ago he was chief assistant master at Edenfield School, Doncaster. There, at that time, he had for one of his colleagues his younger brother George. Both were liked by the boys generally, although George was not an athlete. William was a cricketer, and encouraged the school eleven by zealous interest in their matches. These brothers were men of considerable ability in litera- ture and art. They were always ready to aid and befriend their pupils, many of whom, I have no doubt, remember them with gratitude. F. JABBATT.

Goodleigh Rectory, Barnstaple.

"SASKATOON" (10 S. xi. 207). The botanical name of the fruit called saskatoon berry is Amelanchier canadensis, syn. Aronia ovalis, Pyrus sanguined, Pyrus botryapium, Mespilus canadensis, &c. ; English names, June berry, shad berry, partridge berry, service berry, &c. It is a shrub, occasionally a small tree, common all over the northern part of this continent. The variety abun- dant in Saskatchewan is alnifolia. The Cree word for berry is menis, pi. menisa ; red berries, misaskivutoominesa. The French voyageurs called it la poire, reflecting the resemblance to the pear which is seen in some of the botanical names. Probably, as soon as the English came in contact with the word, they promptly cut it down to "saskatoon" ; but I cannot find this word in print before 1875, when it appears in the table of contents (but not in the text or the index) of the Earl of Southesk's ' Sas- katchewan and the Rocky Mountains.' Many of the early writers on the North-West, such as Harmon, Palliser, Hind, &c., men- tion the fruit, but not by that name. The name saskatoon was conferred on the place in 1885 by a colonization company formed under the Sir John Macdonald regime.

AVEBN PABDOE.

Legislative Library, Toronto.

MELAMPUS AND THE SAINT (10 S. x. 68). " I am shut out of the wondrous world where walked Melampus and the Saint " is the lament of Michael Fairless's Roadmender

after describing his experience in waking to find himself watched by a snake. The two did not walk the world together. The story of Melampus, the famous seer of Greek myth, as given by Apollodorus (' Biblio- theca,' I. 9, 11), is that after he had be- stowed funeral rites on a slain pair of serpents and reared their young, these in gratitude cleansed his ears with their tongues one day as he lay asleep ; whereupon he received the power to understand the speech of birds ; and of other creatures too, it would seem, since later, when imprisoned, he " heard certain wood-worms overhead talking among themselves, and telling how ' the roof -beam was now well-nigh eaten through.' " See this part of the story as told in the ' Saga of Melampus ' note in Butcher and Lang's translation of the ' Odyssey ' (xv. 225). There is a curiously close parallel to the last episode in the story of ' Chips the Carpenter ' (Dickens, ' The Uncommercial Traveller,' chap, xv.), where Chips overhears the rats calculating when they will have eaten through the ship.

By " the Saint " St. Francis of Assisi is presumably meant. One is familiar with stories of his kindly feeling towards birds and animals generally; but is there any legend of his understanding their language ?

EDWABD BENSLY. Aberystwyth.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT'S CELESTIAL PASS- POBTS (10 S. x. 405; xi. 16, 137). In a pamphlet entitled ' Joanna Southcott the Professed Prophetess,' by "Honestus," " Printed for the author by J. & J. Had- dock," Warrington, 1814, are given the words of her " seals " as they appear ante, p. 137, except that "The" before "Elect" is omitted, that the stops are different, and that " precious," " tree," and " life " begin with capitals (p. 11).

On pp. 15, 16, is the following :

"It is now fully ascertained that Joanna Bells her seals. The price at first was a guinea ; it then sank to half a guinea, and now I believe the price is not more than half a crown .... This enriching expedient was luckily suggested to Joanna, as she was sweeping her master's shop, when at the upholsterers. She discovered a seal with the very appropriate intials J. S. This she boldly declared was sent to her from heaven, with her own name engraved, and as courageously backed this assertion with another, that she had been divinely admonished of the arrival of this miraculous seal by a vision." " Honestus " asserts that she sold her seals to about 8,000 persons.

I may mention that I have " The Case of Johanna Southcott, as far as it came under his Professional Observation, impartially