Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/621

 io s. xi. JUNE 26, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

513

Staffordshire as a pioneer of art in the county. Can any of your readers give the quotation ? H. E. NOYES, D.D.

St. Mary's Vicarage, Kilburn, N.W.

TENNYSON CONCORDANCES (10 S. xL 261, 353). It will be obvious to any one who is acquainted with Brightwell's concordance to the works of Tennyson that my reply was written in forgetfulness of the fact that the concordance was the work of Daniel Brightwell. I had not a copy of the book at hand, and I was under the impression at the time I wrote that it was William Bright- well who undertook the laborious task which had so little recognition. Although I 'once visited the Brightwells in their home at Colchester, I never met Daniel, but I believe I am right in saying that he was William's predecessor as tutor in the school at Doncaster. F. JABBATT.

Goodleigh Rectory. Barustaple.

BEBGEKODE (10 S. x. 407 ; xi. 218, 338, 434). It is perhaps only a coincidence that the ordinary French word for a steep bank of a river or canal is berge. The word is also used of the walk along the bank-side, e.g., " Se promener sur la berge d'une riviere, d'un canal" ('Diet. Gen.'). Cotgrave erives the form " Barge, the banke of a river, or water." Boyer (1742) has "Berge, a high or steep beach, strand, or bank of a river." I do not know whether the Bergerode answers to this description, nor do I see why a French term should occur in this isolated fashion iri Lancashire. The origin of F. berge is doubtful. E. W.

As to MB. C. K. OGDEN'S repetition of Col. Fishwick's suggestion, it is unfortunate that there is no evidence in support of any such derivation, and it must therefore be relegated to the limbo of amateur etymo- logies to repose with the attribution to cry- pit of the paternity of crypt. It would be interesting to learn why MB. OGDEN supposes Bergerode to be a trisyllable ; if, as the date of its occurrence suggests (see the ' N.E.D.' under 'Barge'), it is the word Barge-road, there is no epenthesis (unless arrangment is to be thought a proper spelling), nor any false analogy. T. NICKLIN.

Now that PBOF. SKEAT has given scientific correction to the derivation in Col. Fishwick's ' History of Lancashire ' from the supposed words beor and grade, I hope he will help us towards a more probable conclusion. The derivation which I quoted from Thornber's ' Blackpool,' viz., from burgus, a fortified

place, may perhaps be supported by the names Borrowdale (the dale of the " borg," now Castle Crag) and Burghhead, in Elgin (the head of the " borg " of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney). In Isaac Taylor's ' Names and their Histories ' (a work I venture to think by no means obsolete, though sadly needing a new edition), I find, s.v. ' Berg.' the state- ment that the two common elements of German place-names Berg and Burg are liable to be confused. It might well be so in the case of Bergerode, a district as devoid of hills as any that could be found.

G. M. TAYLOB. Kussall School.

"COMETHEB" (10 S. x. 469; xi. 33, 98, 416). The original query in this case was as to the meaning of the expression " co- mether " (pronounced Kum-ether) in a sentence such as this : "A seems to have completely put the ' comether ' on B." There seems to be an opinion amongst your correspondents that the word in a sentence like the above is a corruption of the expres- sion " come hither."

Is not the word " comether," as used by carters and horsemen, a different word altogether ? In. the Isle of Man a carter, when driving a stiff cart, walks on the left hand side of the horse, and, when he wishes the horse to come towards him that is, towards the left hand side of the road, he uses the expression" comOther " (pronounced Kum-aw-ther with the accent on the middle syllable).

Comether (Kum-ether) and Comother (Kum-aw-ther) seem to me to be two different words. GOBSEBTJSH.

This word, which was perfectly familiar to mo in Norfolk, always meant " turn to- the left." It may, and probably did,, originate in " come hither," on account of the driver walking on the left side of the horse. It was (and I presume still is), how- ever, also used by the ploughman, who walks behind the plough. In Norfolk it was always broadened (probably by Scandina- vian influence) into what sounded more like cumharther or cuphdrder. The correspond- ing word for " turn to the right " was " woosh." These words were perfectly understood, and acted on, by the farm horses. I use the past tense, but perhaps it ought to have been the pluperfect, as I am speaking of prehistoric times, when the horse was not an extinct animal, and did not appear to be in any danger of becoming, one. J. FOSTEB PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue.