Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/23

 io- s. ii. JITLV 2, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

15

Venice, and saw it laid in a marble urn in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, with this inscrip- tion to the memory of a most fond father, and a leader of undying fame.

D. o. P.

M. ANTONII BRAGADENI DUM PRO FIDE ET PATRIA BELLO CYPRIO SALAMI \JK CONTRA TURCAS

CONSTANTER

FORTITERQ. CURAM PRINCIPEM SUST1NERET LONG A OBSIDIONE VICTI A PERFIDA HOSTIS MANU IPSO

VIVO AC INTREPIUE SCFFERENTE DETRACTA

PELLIS ANN. SAL. CIO. 1C. LXXI. XV. KAL. SEPT.

ANTON. FRATRIS OPERA ET IMPENSA BYZANTIO HUC

ADVECTA

ATQUE HIO A MARCO HERMOLAO ANTONIOQUE FILIIS PIENTISSIMIS AD SUMMI DEI PATRIA PATERNIQUE

NOMINIS CLORIAM SEMPITERNAM

POSITA ANN. SAL. CIO. 1C. LXXXXVI. VIXIT ANN. XLVI.

In the south transept of the Milan Cathe- dral is the remarkable statue of St. Bar- tholomew by Marco Agrate. The saint is represented flayed, with his skin on his shoulder. The statue has the following inscription :

Non me Praxiteles sed Marcus finxit Agrates. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

KENTISH CUSTOM ON EASTER DAY (10 th S. i. 324, 391). With regard to MR. HUSSEY'S valued note as to the non-existence of the Biddenden maids named Chulkhurst, the whole story is discredited by competent antiquaries. Hasted, in his * History of Kent,' states that the print on the cakes is of modern origin, and considers the land to have been given by two maidens named Preston. The place was formerly called Benenden (see Dugdale's * British Traveller'). This would be pronounced Binden, probably, and hence a notion that Binden was a corruption of Biddenden. Would it not be worth while examining the index of wills for the name of Preston 1 J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

THE LOBISHOME (10 th S. i. 327, 417, 472). In Murray's 'Handbook for Portugal,' 1864 edition, with reference to the province of Traz os Montes (p. 186), among other super- stitions, the writer says :

"Here also the belief in bent.au is in full force ; they correspond very nearly to the possessors of the power of second sight in Scotland."

Then follows verbatim (save for some half- dozen words) the passage quoted at the first reference by X. M. & A. Did the Rev. J. Mason Xealo edit the ' Handbook'?

Lord Carnarvon, when en route from Mertola to Beja, stopped at an inn ('Portugal and Galicia,' third edit., 1848, p. 268) :

" Here I observed a man of singular appearance, sitting apart, not speaking himself, or spoken to by others. His face was pale and haggard, his eyes deep sunk, and his hairs were prematurely grey. The Borderer whispered in my ear that he was one of the dreadful Lobishomens, a devoted race, held in mingled horror and commiseration, and never mentioned without emotion by the Portuguese pea- santry. They believe that, if a woman be delivered of seven male infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable fatality, becomes subject to the powers of darkness, and is compelled on every Saturday evening to assume the likeness of an ass.* So changed, and followed by a horrid train of dogs, he is forced to run an impious race over the moors, and through the villages, nor is allowed an interval of rest till the dawning Sabbath terminates his sufferings, and restores him to his human shape.

A wound inflicted upon the poor victim can

alone release him from this accursed bondage."

In * Travels in Portugal,' by John Latouche (Oswald J. F. Crawfurd), published 1875, I find on p. 329 :

"The wehr-wolf belief is almost universal in Northern and Western Portugal, and the existence of witches and warlocks and revenants of every kind is established on evidence more than sufficient to convince Mr. Wallace of spiritualistic celebrity."

Mr. Crawfurd attributes (p. 26) this super- stition to the influence of the Romans, fur- ther observing that the language "is nearer to Latin than any other known tongue," and that the cultivation of the soil, "to this day, is done in accordance with the precepts of Cato and Columella."

"The type of Latin legend to which I refer is that well-known and most grisly and hideous of all ghost stories, the tale of the soldier in Petronius Arbiter."

He then narrates a gruesome story illus- trating this weird belief, told to him by a farmer who was an actor in the events, some twenty years earlier.

Is not the root of this belief to be found in cases of children, lost or abandoned in wild places, who have survived, like Caspar the German boy, or Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's 'In the Rukh'? M tiller, the head of the woods and forests in India, speaking to Gisborne, says :

" Now I tell you dot only once in my service, and dot is thirty years, haf I met a boy dot began as this man began. Und he died. Sometimes you hear of dem in der census reports, but dey all die. Dis man [Mowgli] haf lived, and he is an anachronism, for he is before der Iron Age, and der Stone Age."

I have read a story (by Rudyard Kipling?) of the capture of a wild boy, who dies from the effects of confinement and change of diet; he could not speak when caught, but utters before his death two or three words, vaguely remembered from infancy. R. W. B.


 * Did not the author mean to write a wolf 2