Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/597

 10 s. XIL DEC. is, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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stove, and surely the use of the word in such circumstances may lead one to suppose that the distinguished sportsman was familiar with " franklin n as the name of a bird indigenous to his own country, viz., Scolopax fedoa, the American godwit, which is, or used to be, found in and about Hudson's Bay, and is a fowl of the grallic order fully sixteen inches long.

I do not, of course, dispute the correctness of MB. MATTHEWS' s assumption that Lowell's lines refer to a stove so named, and not to a bird, although I am tempted to observe that the " bushed asparagus in fading green " may refer to vase embellishment, and the " franklin clean " to a stuffed specimen of the bird, flanked by such vases. I used, years ago, frequently to fill a pair of large mantelpiece vases with bunches of the beautiful berry-laden asparagus fern from my father's garden, and I was not alone in a due appreciation of this feathery plant for decorative purposes.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

SACRED PLACE-NAMES IN FOREIGN LANDS (10 S. xi. 467 ; xii. 176, 254, 314). The reply of MR. ALEX. THOMS at the last reference stirred dim recollections, and prompted inquiries which have been productive of some result. It appears that there were once both a Sodom and a Gomorrah, and even a Purgatory, near Ceres in Fifeshire, and that all three have vanished almost as com- pletely as the Cities of the Plain. An altera- tion of the highway, on or near which they stood, affected their prosperity, and ulti- mately ended their existence. The only one of the three of which there is any trace left is Sodom, and all that remains to show the position of this place is a part of the old road, a hedge, and the crumbling ruin of one dwelling-house. Of the other two centres nothing definite seems to be known at the present time. They had all, however, been within a limited area in the district associated with the Scottish historian Lind- say of Pitscottie. The names are preserved in a stanza of local interest, which runs thus :

Kilnhill and Ceres Mill,

Sodom and Gomorrah ; An' a little wee hoose at the side o' the road

They ca'd it Purgatory.

To the eye the rime presented in this arrange- ment is by no means satisfactory, but the Scottish pronunciation makes it quite respectable. The statements are given on the authority of a Ceres resident whose knowledge of his village and district is wide and accurate. THOMAS BAYNE.

Eden has to be added to this list of names. There are two British rivers of this name, the one in Westmorland and Cumberland, the other in Fife. The Fifeshire stream is mellifluous and picturesque, with an especially fine estuary, near St. Andrews

W. B.

In the parish of Northmaven in Shetland there are five crofts known by the names of the five cities of the Philistines Ashdod, Gaza, Askelon, Gath, and Ekron. These are, perhaps, scarcely to be reckoned as sacred place-names, except for the fact that they are found in the Bible. J. WILLCOCK. Lerwick.

Close to nearly every village in the North Riding of Yorkshire is (or was forty years ago) a plot of allotment-gardens. This is generally known and described in the Over- seer's returns as " the Canaan ' ; or " Para- dise.' 1 The former name is often corrupted into the " Canings," which sounds to some as if it referred to the internal fences ; but I think both names originally merely meant the garden. These plots are by no means conspicuous for the beauty of their sur- roundings sometimes quite the reverse.

Where villages have grown into towns the site of these plots is often marked by a Paradise Street. H. G. P.

There is a place called Paradise in Anna- polis County, Nova Scotia, situated in a rich valley, through which flows a river, and abounding with orchards, some of which contain as many as seven or eight hundred trees, from which large consign- ments of choice fruit are exported yearly, A railway runs through the valley from Annapolis to Halifax, with a station at Paradise. Having lived there for some two years, and been often at the station on the arrival of trains, I noticed that the guard when calling out the name of the station, invariably added " Nova Scotia,'* putting special emphasis upon " Nova Scotia. n Guard Edwards was a thoughtful man, who evidently wished his passengers not to make a mistake as to their whereabouts.

There are also a Paradas in Spain, a Paradies in Germany, and a Paradis in Italy, all of which probably mean the same.

J. BROWN.

88, St. Leonard's Road, Hove.

I find that Devonshire rejoices in the following : Bearah, Holy Street (Chagford), Holy City (Chardstock), Jordan, and Wilder- ness. Probably there are others. At Ottery