Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/153

 io< s. IL An;. 13, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

121

LOXDOX, tiATt'lWAY, AIGUST IS,

CONTENTS. -No. 33.

NOTES : Whitsunday. 121 Cowper's Letters, 122 Bur- ton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 124 Vanishing London- Messrs. Coutts's Removal Longest Telegram Pronun- ciation of "Viking," 125 -Westminster Hall Flooded- Plavs at St. Alban's Grammar School " Giving the Hand" in Diplomacy The Dukery Records '-Cricket Umpires' Garb The Cape Dutch Language, 126.

QUERIES : Westminster School Boarding-houses, 127 Fotheringay Swan-names Psalm-singing Weavers Phrases and Reference-Nine Maidens-The Parish Clerk Our Eleven Days" Silk Men: Silk Throwsters "Loci tenentes " Tall Essex Woman. Mrs. Gordon, 128 French Novel Pilgrims' Ways Waggoner's Wells Rules of Christian Life-John Butler, M.P. Bacon and the Drama, 129 Authors of Quotations Wanted. 130.

BiEPLIES :-Bathing-Machines. 130 Court Dress- Amban,- 131-Lamont Harp-The White Company : " Naker"- "Sun and Anchor" Inn Vaccination and Inoculation, 132-"A singing face " Blias Travers's Diary Largest Private House in England Shakespeare's Sonnet xxyi. Adam Zad-Natalese, 133 -English Channel-Bailiff ot JKaale Silver Bouquet-Holder A Royal Carver- Spanish Proverb on the Orange-Gordon Epitaph-King John's Charters, 134 Diadems Thomas Neale : " Herberley Electric Telegraph Anticipated, 135 Irresponsible Scribblers, 13* Morland's Grave Paste St. Ninlans Church, 137" Paules fete," 138.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Hakluyt's Navigations '' Great Masters ' - Brandes's Edition of Shakespeare Oxford Editions of Wordsworth and Burns 'John Constable Scenes from ' Les Facheux 'Hamilton's ' Ancestry Chart The 'Burlington 'Magazines and Reviews.

Death of the Rev. S. Arnott.

Notices to Correspondents.

WHITSUNDAY.

THE recurrence of the "silly season" is marked this year by the revival, both in the Church Times and in the Standard, of the old fable as to the "derivation" of Whit- sunday from the German Pjingsten. Why the English clergy and others should, in so many instances, cling to this remarkable invention, it is hard to say. But it illustrates the vast amount of ignorance that prevails as to the most elementary facts of philology.

Allow me to state a few of the difficulties in the way of this remarkable piece of in- fatuation.

1. There is no proof that any High German word was ever known to the people of Eng- land before A.D. 1400. English is not a High German, but a Low German dialect. One gentleman actually adduces the O.H.G. wizzan as neatly accounting for the pronun- ciation Witsun (without h). But he clean omits to point out the fact that our English writers never use it, preferring the native form witan in its stead.

2. There is no proof that the G. Pfingsten was ever used in England. Any English MS. beginning a word with j>f would be a curiosity.

3. Really chronology must be considered. At what date did this fabled Pjmasten arrive n England? This question is always care-
 * ully evaded. The paradox-lovers naturally

mte chronology and quotations. But plain men are entitled to have them.

4. Even those who believe in that blessed word ** corruption " ought to have some regard
 * or phonology. If Pjingsten became Whitsun,

pray let us have a few of the intermediate
 * orms ; with quotations, of course, as usual.

On the other hand, allow me to quote some of the positive evidence to the contrary.

5. The stock quotation is that from the A.-S. Chronicle,' anno 1067, in MS. D. Soon

after a mention of Easter comes the passage: " Ealdred arce-biscop hig ge-halgode tocwene on West-mynstre on Hwitan Sunnan-dseg"; i.e, Eadred the archbishop consecrated her as queen on White Sunday. Showing that one of the intermediate forms between Pfinysten and Whitsunday took the extra- ordinary shape " Hwitan Sunnandseg " ! Showing also that the High German Pjingstcn, known to Old High German only in the dative plural Phinyesten, from a nominative Phin- geste (with no final n .'), was introduced, if at all, before A.D. 1067.

6. The A.-S. word for Pentecost was Ptntc- costcn.

7. The Icelandic forms are given, with quotations, in Vigfusson's dictionary, and form a remarkable set. They are Hvita- dagar, lit. White days, i.e., Pentecost ; Hvita- daga-vika, White-day week, /.<., Whitsun- week ; Hvit-Drottins-dagr, White Lord's day, i.e., Whitsunday ; Hvitasunnudagr, White- sunday, Whitsunday ; Hvitasunnudags-vika, Whitsunday's week, i.e., Whitsun-week. How all these are to be got out of Pringst'n is a mystery ; " corruption " must have had a high old time of it.

8. For those who like instructive evidence, I can give it. In Westwood's * Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria,' last plate but one, there is an excellent facsimile of an Icelandic MS., No. 503 of the Additional MSS. in the British Museum, with a rubric which Prof. West- wood alleges to run thus, "A Himta Sunnu Dag skal fyrst syngia Veni Creator Spiritus," in large letters. With the not unusual ill- luck of one who is so obliging as to give us a facsimile, he has obviously misread the second word, which turns out to bo " Huyta," a late spelling of "H vita"; and the sense is " On White Sun Day [one] shall first sing Veni Creator spiritus," i.e., the very hymn fit for the occasion. This excellent piece of evidence is enough to make the paradox- worshipper writhe.