Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/288

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. IL SEPT. 17,

The name of Worlington is, similarly, not derived from the absurd form Ulurintone, but from the A.-S. Wulfheringa-tun (town of the sons of Wulfhere), which again is much disguised by its inadequate Norman form.

That Woodington should be spelt Odetona in Domesday Book is likewise according to rule. It really represents A.-S. Wudan-tun (town of Wuda); the name Wuda occurs A.D. 727.

There are literally hundreds of examples in which the A.-S. wulf (a wolf) is spelt ivlf, or ulf, or olf, or ol, or ul in Norman ; A.-S. wudu, a wood, and Wuda, a personal name, appear regularly, in Norman, as ode or oden ; and the A.-S. iveorth or worth regularly appears as orde, or orth, or unh. It will hardly be maintained that 'ood and 'ooman are original forms, from which wood and woman are derived. But these are parallel cases.

The Normans were so fond of writing o for u that they absolutely succeeded in forcing upon us the universal spelling wo for wu. The result is the astonishing taboo of initial wu in English, which is only allowed in dialect and in a few words that are very modern indeed. We are allowed to pronounce the A..-S. wulf in the old way, but we must spell it wolf or be accounted ignorant. And the A.-S. wudu is now wood, with the old sound of the wud-. WALTER W. SKEAT.

"A SHOULDER OF MUTTON BROUGHT HOME

FROM FRANCE " (10 th S. ii. 48, 158). The song "I kill'd a man and he was dead" had no connexion with "A shoulder of mutton," &c., although conjoined anachronismatically by MR. AWDRY, as a mere refrain. The two are connected solely by the fact of both being "Nonsense Verses," such as the still more recent

A man of words, and not of deeds,

Is like a garden full of weeds.

The true tune of the original ballad is ' Tan tara-rara, Tantivee,' for which see the late William Chappell's 'Popular Music,' p. 326, first and only trustworthy edition, circa 1855-6, and ' Koxburghe Ballads,' vol. vi. p. 406. The title is ' Tom Tell-Truth,' and the date not later than 1676. Three black- letter broadsides of it are extant, in Huth Coll., ii. 103 ; Jersey Coll., i. 258, now Linde- siana, No. 585, at Wigan ; and in Addit. vol. iv. 79 of Roxburghe Coll., formerly B. H. Bright's, reprinted by me in Ballad Society's 'Roxb. Ballads,' vol. viii. p. 425 (1896). It has four woodcuts, one of which is 4 The Friar and the Boy' of Percy Folio MS., Supplement, p. 9, a poem long anticipatory of Tom Hood's

'Tony's Whim' and Browning's 'Pied Piper/ enforcing the listener to dance, nolens volens* The ballad has the preliminary motto of All you that will not me believe, disprove it if you

can ;

You by my story may perceive I am an Honest Man.. I killed a man, and he was dead, fa la la ; fa la la ;

[Repeat, pasxim. ] TOM TELL-TRUTH.

I killed a man, and he was dead, and run to St. Alban's without a head ;

With a fa la, fa la la la, fa la, la, la, la, la, la.

I asked him why he run so wild? He told me he

got a maid [beguil'd]. And in his head there was a spring : a thousand

great salmons about there did spring.

I saddled a [majre and rid to Whitehall, and under

the Gate-house she gave me a fall. I lay in a swound three and twenty long year, and

when I awak'd I was fill'd with fear.

The thing that did fright me I cannot express : I.

saw a man big as the Tower, no less, This man with the Monument would run away, but

at Aldgate Watch they did him stay.

I got up again, and rid to Hyde Park, and made the

old [ma]re to sneeze [until dark]. Atop of Paul's steeple there did I see a delicate,

dainty, fine Apple-tree.

The Apples were ripe, and ready to fall, and kill'd

seven hundred men on a stall. The blood did run both to and fro, which caused

seven water-mills for to go.

I see Paul's steeple run upon wheels, fa la, &c. I see Paul's steeple run upon wheels, and in the middle of all Moor-fields.

With a fa la, fa la la la, fa la, la, la, la, la, la,.

Printed for J. Wright, J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger. (Date, circa 1676-7. Alludes to the Great Fire monument, built 1671-7.)

The steeple of Old St. Paul's had been destroyed by fire in September, 1666, and of course there was no steeple, but a dome- instead, in the Cathedral rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, completed in 1710.

Even " Nonsense Verses " have an interest for some persons, and ought not to be mis- quoted or treated in a slovenly manner. are unavoidably modified and bracketed. JOSEPH WOODFALL EBSWOKTH.
 * N. & Q.' demands accuracy, but a few words

The Priory, Ashford, Kent.

FAIR MAID OF KENT (10 th S. i. 289, 374- ii. 59, 118, 175). In my copy of 'A Catalogue and Succession of the Kings, <fec.,' Raphe Brooke, 1619, under Edward, eldest son of Edward III., it is said of his wife Joane : "She had bin twice married before, first to the Earle of Salisbury, and after to Thomas Holland." A former owner, in an early seven- teenth - century hand, has written in the margin, "A daughter of this venter was.