Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/469

 io* s. ii. NOV. 12, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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now ; Prof. Skeat, s.v. stoker, mentions the M.E. stoken, to stab. A twirl or twitch in a vein of lead is known as a stalch ; one may compare it to a knot in a piece of wood. In Tapping's ' Glossary of Derbyshire Mining Words ' we are told that " twitches are the contracted or straight parts of the vein caused by the presence of nard stone, as flint, chert, &c."

A place is said to be so many miles from another " by th' fall o' th' foot." The phrase, however, refers only to walking down hill. Reap up, in the distinct sense of revive, is, I think, rare, though the phrase to "rip up old grievances" is common to most parts of Eng- land. At a sale of laud which I attended all the lots were withdrawn, but after whisky had been handed round they were put up again. The sale was then said to be reaped up. In Sheffield I have heard reap used in the sense of recoup or recover, as, " It '11 be a long while afore it reaps itself." I asked a woman who was boiling shallots to make pickle to tell me how the whole thing was done. She said/ 4 1 first gie 'em &lop," meaning a slight boiling. The word galley-balk is used in the sense of a flimsy or dangerous structure of any kind, such as a pile of boxes on which it is unsafe to stand. The herb comfrey is said to be good for broke-wounds (fractures), and is called nip-bone. Creep is used in two interesting senses. As autumn advances they say, " Days begin to croppen in now." In Shef- field, as I have said elsewhere, days are said to creep out when they begin to lengthen. A father said to his daughters, who had come home soaked with rain, "I should ha' thought you might ha' croppen in somewhere." In the older houses the doors are often not more than five feet high, so that a man of average height does, in fact, creep in.

A good deal might be said about the colours of oxen. A patch of red or white on a cow's skin is called a blonch, the * N.E.D.' only having blanch in the sense of a white spot. A " blue and white cow " is said to be blue-roftned, though the word roan, roaned, or roant means red and white so blended that you can hardly separate the two colours. A cow with red spots on her skin is said to be red-skewed i.e., red-spotted, and she is black- skewed when she has black spots. When the animal is neither black nor red, but the colour is "dark among red," she is gresil- roaned. Prof. Skeat says that the origin of roan is unknown. Is it the O.N. rein, a strip ?

The handle of a turn-tree or windlass is known as a sivaif, which is identical with the O.N. sveif, a tiller or handle, Norwegian

sveiv. The bagskin, or stomach of a calf, con- tains a substance known as steep, which was formerly used instead of rennet in making cheese. A wooden collar, with an iron ring attached, used for fastening cows to the boose-stake, or rod-stake, is known as a sool' and f rampart. A bow of hazel is fitted into a flat piece of wood called the overclove, and secured therein by a slot, so that it cannot get out. An iron ring, called a f rampart, is fastened by a link or two of chain to the sool, and \\\Q f rampart holds the sool to the- boose-stake. Specks of lead, scattered amongst the refuse of the mine, are called tollman's dots. These are one of the "members" of a lead mine. Skeat defines mug as "a kind of cup for liquor." In the Peak a bread-mug is an earthenware vessel, about two feet high, for holding bread. The most remote part of a lead mine which has- been reached for the time being is called the forfeit. To jig is to separate lead ore from I refuse ; this is usually done by boys, who 1 use a jigging-pole, which jumps up and down. 1 Walchen band, or welchen, is thin tarred rope I or string used for thatching stacks. Bage r i riming with sage, is a portion of anything, as "a bage of land," or "a bage of stone" in a quarry. The word is well known in the Peak. A bolch is a lump, as when it is said of a drunken, bloated man that " the fab hings on him i' gret bolches." The 'N.E.D.' has this word as bulch, the latest quotation being from Hooson's * Miners' Diet.,' 1747. Topolch is to knock down, as when a man rams or hammers a stake into the ground. The 'E.D.D.' has the word as pulch, which is said to be identical with the literary English pulse. The Derbyshire pronuncia- tion, however, is not consistent with this explanation.

To go out is to die, as, " We thought she 'd ha' gone out." Here life seems to be com- pared to a candle, reminding us of Shak- speare's " brief candle," or of the brevis lux of Catullus ("nobiscum semel occidit brevis lux "). A harelip is known as a hare-shorn (or hart-shorn) lip ; in South Yorkshire it is a slouch lip. A kenny is a small taw used in the game of marbles. In using their skipping-ropes girls employ the word pepper* which is hard to define, but which implies rapid motion. A girl will take her skipping- rope and say to her companion, " Let me have- a pepper." She then says, "Pee, pie, po, pepper." As each word is uttered the move- ment becomes quicker until the word pepper- is reached, when it is very rapid. This interesting word is the O.N. pipra, to quiver, which Vigfusson connects with the