Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/92

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JAN. 23, 1009

carried about at the Christmas " Hooden- ings." See ' The Dialect Dictionary,' s.v. ' Whizzer ' and ' Hooset.'

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

ORKNEY HOGMANAY SONG (10 S. xi. 5). May I call attention to two striking coin- cidences in the above with the ' Swallow Song ' preserved in Athenseus, viii. 360 c. ?

Get up, old wife, and shake your feathers ; Dinna think that we are beggars ; We are children come from home, Seeking our Hogmanay.

avoiy avoiye TO.V vpav Y^

ov yap yepovres oy/,ev aAAa iraiSia,

Gie 's the lass wi' the bonnie broon hair, Or we '11 knock your door upon the floor.

et /j.ev TL Swo-eis ei Se pr), OVK ea<7oyu,v } TTJ rav dvpav ^epw/zes r) dovir'tpOvpov 17 TO.V yvvaiKa. rav ecra) Ka^/xevav...

H. K. ST. J. S.

BEFANA : EPIPHANY (10 S. xi. 6). Mr. Marion Crawford gives a very interesting account of the Befana and the fair in the Piazza Navona in his ' Ave Roma Immor- talis,' pp. 282-4. It was formerly held in the Piazza di S. Eustachio ; see Hare's ' Walks in Rome,' ii. 141, where there is a quotation from Story's ' Roba di Roma.' JOHN B. WAINEWBIGHT.

'FOLKESTONE FIERY SERPENT' (10 S. x. 509). I hope that COL. FYNMORE'S refer- ence to this curious old ballad will lead to some further information. I rather think it was of Dover origin. It was first published about 1843, by Thomas Rigden of Snargate Street, Dover, at the time when the South- Eastern Railway Company purchased Folkestone Harbour, and tried to capture the Channel passenger traffic by running passenger steamers from Folkestone to Boulogne before the railway was finished to Dover. The rivalry between the two ports^seems to have given rise to the satirical ballad. JOHN BAVINGTON JONES.

Dover.

[Reply from MB. A. RHODES next week.]

LEG GROWING AFTER DEATH (10 S. X. -506).

I cannot quote authorities for the state- ment, but I remember reading in more than one book of folk-lore that a hand will some- times thrust itself through the turf above a grave. The superstition is German, but I believe that it is not confined to Germany. The hand will protrude in spite of all efforts to give it permanent burial. Whether it grows again if cut off I am not certain.

If my memory is accurate, it is not infre- quently held out of the grave in protest against some injustice done to the dead while he was yet alive, or against the people

vVin killfifl him T Tt TH. "NT. T.

/

who killed him.

FREEHOLDERS IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (10 S. x. 470). Sims's 'Manual' (1888 ed.) gives the following lists of freeholders preserved in the British Museum among the Lansdowne and Harleian MSS. :

Lists of Freeholders in the Counties of Bedford, Hertford, Lincoln, Oxford, Suffolk, and York, A.D. 1561. Lansd. MS. 5.

Names of Freeholders in Cheshire, 1579, 1580. Harl. MS. 1424, f. 7.

Names of Freeholders in Essex [n.d.]. Harl. MS. 2240, f. 6. Lansd. MS. 5.

List of Freeholders in Lancashire, A.D. 1600. Harl. MS. 2042, f. 185 ; 2077 ; 2085 ; 2112.

W. B. GERISH.

COCKBURNSPATH (10 S. x. 430). With respect to the designation of this place as " Coppersmith," it may be noted as an interesting fact that this name is given to it by Oliver Cromwell. In the library of Sir Richard J. Waldie-Griffith at Hender- syde Park, Kelso, there is a pamphlet printed at the office of The Courant, New- castle-on-Tyne, in 1847, being a reprint of ' Four Letters from Oliver Cromwell to Sir Arthur Heselridge, Governor of New- castle-on-Tyne.' At that date the originals were in the possession of Robert Ormston, a connexion by marriage of the Waldie family. One of them (to be quoted) is described as written entirely by Cromwell ; in the other three the signatures only are in his writing. The one to which reference has been made is as follows :

To the Honble. S r A r Heselridge

at Newcastle, or elsewhere,

these hast hast.

DEERE S r ,

Wee are upon an engagement very difficult, the enimie hath blocked up our way att the passe at Copperspith, thorough w ch wee canott gett w th out almost a miracle, Hee lyeth soe upon the Hills that wee knowe not how to come that way without great difficultye, and our lyinge heere dayly consumeth our men, whoe fall sicke beyond imagination. I perceave your forces are not in a capacitye for present releife, wherefore (whatever becomes of us) itt will bee well for you to gett what forces you can together, and the South to helpe what they can, the businesse neerely concern eth all good people. If your forces had beene in a readinesse to have fallen upon the back of Coppers- pith, itt might have occasioned supplies to have come to us, but the only wise God knowes what is best, all shall work for good, our Spirits are com- fortable (praised bee the Lord) though our present condition bee as it is, and indeed wee have much hope in the Lord, of whose mercy we have had