Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/501

 10 s. XL MAY 22, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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coloured cloth ' ; and the line ' Who stares, in Germany, at ivatchet eyes,' tr. of Juvenal, Sat. xiii., wrongly attributed to Dryden. See examples in Nares from Browne, Lyly, Drayton, and Taylor; and, in Richardson, from Beaumont and Fletcher, Hakluyt, Spenser, and Ben Jonson. Cotgrave explains per.* as ' watchet, blunket, skie-coloured ' ; and couleur perse as ' Skie-colour, azure-colour, a blunket, or light blue.' See Blunket in the ' New E. Diet.,' and my article in Philol. Soc. Tram. Nov. 6, 1885, p. 329. Webster has ' watchet stockings,' 'The Malcontent,' A. III. sc. i. Lydgate has ' watchet blewe ' ; see Warton, ' Hist. Eng. Poetry ' (1840), ii. 280." Chaucer's ' Works,' Oxford, 18&, vol. v. p. 101.

The above is probably not a complete explanation ; we should expect vaciet to have produced a form vachet. Very likely some further fact lies behind. Godefroy's ' Old French Dictionary ' gives an O.F. wachet, a kind of stuff ; unluckily, the date is no older than 1420. But he also gives an O.F. wache, wasce, a sort of stuff, which I understand him to say goes back to 1262. and is evidently of Germanic origin. This suggests that there was an early form wache, the name of a stuff, with a diminutive form wachet ; and that this was associated with the O.F. vaciet, with reference to the colour which the material often possessed. Just as in the case of blunket, we really have not enough evidence to explain the exact sources of the names of these materials. If ever the explanation comes, it will be due not to wild guessing, but to prolonged research. The former method is the easier, and is therefore usually adopted.

Who was the " philologist " who suggested a derivation from wood ? It is, perhaps, as well to note that the Low Latin vadidre meant, not " to dye with woad," but to give a pledge or engage ; and the English form of vadium is not watch, but gage.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

MASBURENSIS : ITS IDENTITY (10 S. xi. 228). F. A. Ebert, who includes a detailed description of the various early editions of Tertullian's writings in his ' Bibliographical Lexikon' (Leipzig, 1821), beginning with the ed. princeps of 1521, based upon two defective MSS., quotes also the subsequent and more accurate edition of 1550, brought to light by Sigism. G. Selenius, and adds in a note that its text was especially emended by means of a "British MS." The prove- nance of this MS. from a " Ccenobium Masburense " appears to be an abbreviation, if not an error or misprint, as rightly sug- gested by PROF. J. EGGELING, for the reputed " Monasterium Malmesburense." Perhaps Ackermann's account of the posses-

sions of the Abbey of Malmesbury in the days of the Anglo-Saxon kings (1857), quoted in Ul. Chevalier's ' Repertoire de* Sources historiques du Moyen Age ' (1899). may afford a further clue. H. KREBS.

May I hazard a guess that as there "was a College of Jesus at Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, and as Masbrough is part of Rotherham, the place inquired about may be Masbrough ? There is a " College Road '' in Masborough, as well as a " College Street," at the present time.

MATTHEW H. PEACOCK.

Wakefield Grammar School.

" Masburensis " sounds to me as though it might be a Latinized form of Masborough, a transpontine suburb of Rotherham.

ST. SWITHIN.

HARE FORECASTING FIRE (10 S. xi. 310). In Northamptonshire there is a belief that if a hare, on being chased, runs through a village, it brings bad luck and misfortune into the place. Some say a fire is likely to occur in consequence. The following rime emanates from Peterborough :

If in the Minster Close a hare

Should for herself have made a lair,

Be sure before a week is down

A fire will rage within the town. The same superstition also prevails at Ely.

The following is taken from The North- ampton Herald of 11 Oct., 1884 :

"It is a common saying among the country people that a hare seen in a village street is an omen of fire. A singular instance of this super- stition occurred at Rushdeu on the day of the fire reported in Wednesday's Northampton Daily Chronicle. A hare was seen to run along one of the streets a few hours previous to the nre, and some who saw it expressed the hope that should the omen prove true, the fire would not occur at a factory or any other public works. Puss was shot at by a certain sporting gentleman, with no other effect than that of accelerating her movements. The fire happening so soon afterwards, in the eyes of some persons is of course regarded as an evidence or the truth of the saying."

JOHN T. PAGE. Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

DEAD ANIMALS EXPOSED ON TREES AND WALLS (10 S. x. 149, 457). It was a New Year's Day usage with the ancient Chinese to gibbet a cock's head on the eastern gate of a house in order to avert evil spirits, for which purpose white cocks were in par- ticular demand (Li Shi-Chin, ' Pan-tsau- kang-muh,' 1578, art. 'Ki'). Also they customarily hanged dogs on gates, to defend their dwellings from miasmal in- fluences, as they said, on every recurrence