Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/190

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL AUG. 21, im

28 Dec., 1708, and 17 Feb., 1709. On the latter two occasions he complains of the state of the roads, which he describes as " danger- ous as well as troublesome."

On 11 Nov., 1717, James Fretwell noted in his diary :

"We breakfasted at Bawtry, where I had an opportunity of seeing some of our relations from Maltbey, it being the fair-day. William Ward went with us on the way to London as far as the Eel-Pye House; but my father went with us to Newark, and there tarried all night." Surtees Society, vol. Ixv. p. 191.

A. STAPLETON.

Nottingham.

ABBOTS OF EVESHAM (10 S. xii. 28, 78). A large brass has recently been placed in All Saints' Church, Evesham, containing a list of fifty-five Abbots of Evesham ; and a full list of their names may be found in the admirable ' Notes and Queries ' column of The Evesham Journal. The date of this list is 9 Jan., 1909 ; but a number of very interesting references to the abbots will be found passim in the weekly column.

I may say that the list given in the brass above mentioned does not correspond with the names of the fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth abbots given by W. C. B. in his reply. According to the brass \ these are respectively Kynelm, Ebba, and Edwin ; but I have no means of knowing which statement is correct. HOWARD S. PEARSON.

In my list of fifty-eight abbots No. 15 is Kynelme, No. 16 Kynach, No. 17 Ebba, and No. 18 Kynath.

The origin of the name Kynoch, as indicated in Chambers's ' Twentieth-Cen- tury Dictionary,' p. 1158, appears to be from kenn or ceann (Gael.)=a head, and auch or oc&=a field. J. K.

Hav wards Heath,

FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH POEM IN WELSH METRE (10 S. xi. 367). When writing the note at the above reference I was unaware of the fact, which I have since discovered, that this poem had been pub- lished, with a copy of it in English spelling, by Dr. Furnivall, under the title ' An Early English Hymn to the Virgin. . . .and a Welshman's Phonetic Copy of It,' in the Miscellanies of the English Dialect Society March, 1880. The two texts there printed are taken respectively from Hengwrt MSS. 479 (English) and 294 (Welsh phonetic copy), whereas the text given in ' Gwaith Barddonol Etowel Swrdwal a'i Fab leuan,' p. 32 ff., is from B.M. Add. MS. 14866, with variants from Hengwrt MS. 294. To Furni-

vall' s edition are added notes on the Welsh copy by A. J. Ellis. It should, however, be pointed out that the implication con- tained in Dr. Furnivall's title, that the hymn was of English origin, is probably inaccurate ; the fact that the poem is in Welsh " strict metre " makes it practically certain that it was, as stated in the B.M. MS., the work of a Welshman. H. I. B.

" MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, AND JOHN " (10 S. xii. 47, 95). MR. THOS. RATCLIFFE (p. 95) has a last line which looks like the penultimate of a version known in West Yorkshire some forty years ago. I cannot remember the whole wording exactly. There were many variants, and I think they were all frowned upon by " proper " parents as being Popish, but kept alive by nursemaids. I think they all led up to one of two termina- tions, one of which was

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take ;

while the last line of the other was

I pray the Lord my soul to keep. This is probably the line missing from MR. RATCLIFFE 's version.

H. SNOWDEN WARD. Hadlow, Kent.

In the version of my youth the watching and praying belonged to the angels, not to the Evangelists. The lines ran thus :

Four corners to my bed,

Four angels round my head ;

One to watch and one to pray,

And two to bear my soul away.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Bless the bed that I lie. on. Another riming prayer for bedtime was (and perhaps still is) :

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep ;

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I believe the right reading was

And if I die and ne'er awake,

but the other was the popular version.

E. LLOYD.

This is one of the hardy perennials of ' N. & Q.' See 1 S. vi. 480 ; xi. 206, 474 ; xii. 90, 135 ; 7 S. viii. 208, 275, 414, 494. The late E. McC (Mr. Edgar McCulloch) gave a French version of the charm, and Miss R. H. BUSK added that it was known over the greater part of Europe. Halliwell- Phillipps's ' Nursery Rhymes/ 1843, p. 130, may with advantage be consulted.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.