Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/613

. ii. DEC. 24, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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which varied according to circumstance and the ability of the band, each play ending with demands for money made by "Little Devil Doubt," and when it was over, the 'Guisers had cake, or pie, and a hot drink of " elderberry wine," the Christmas drink of the Midlands. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

CHRISTMAS UNDER CHARLES I. Edward Fisher, Esq., in his % Christian Caveat to the Old and New Sabbatarians,' fourth ed., 1652, p. 63, sums up the customs to which the Puritans objected :

"Most of them teach that it is unlawfull to ring the bels in peale upon the Lords day ; to eat mince-pies, plumb-porrage, or brawn in December ; to trim the church or private house with holly and ivy about Christmas, or to strew it with rushes about midsummer ; to stick a resting peece of beef with rosemary ; or to stick a sprig of rosemary in a collar of brawn when it is brought to the table ; to play at cards or bowles ; to hawk or hunt ; to give money to a servants or apprentises box, or to send a couple of capons or any other present to a friend in the twelve-dayes."

Also they said that " blazes " in the chimneys at Christmas, and Christmas " kariles," were superstitious, pp. 64-6, with much more to the same effect. W. C. B.

CHRISTMAS ^COINCIDENCES. In a volume of scraps in the'British Museum is the follow- ing :

"A celebrated whip who drives from the Blue Boar, Holborn, was born on Christmas Day, his wife was born on Christmas Day, he has three children born on Christmas Day, and five christened on that anniversary. Stockport Advertiser."

This is from Creed's 'Signs of Taverns,' vol. vi., under 'George and Blue Boar,' acquired by the Museum in 1859. No date for the newspaper is given, but even if it were, it would not enable us to verify the truth of this remarkable series, as no names or places or dates are given. As Mr. W. J. Thorns was sceptical as to centenarians, I feel dubious as to such coincidences. AYEAHR.

ARTHUR SHORTER. In 'N. & Q.' for 28 Dec., 1861 (2 nd S. xii. 521), there is a query under the above heading, which in subsequent issues received some replies, which only showed how little was known of this gentle- man. He was the youngest son of John and Elizabeth (nee Phillips) Shorter, of Bibrook, Kennington, near Ashford, Kent, and brother to Lady Wai pole. He was born circa 1690-5, and succeeded to his father's estate on the death of his brother John in 1745. He had but poor health the latter part of his life, which was spent at Bath, where he died and was buried in the Abbey Church on 14 Feb.,

1750/1. He left his estates, after some lega- cies to his servants, to his surgeon, Mr. John Dunn. He was never married. Hasted, in- his ' History of Kent,' with his occasional inaccuracy, confuses him with his brother Capt. Erasmus Shorter, who died on 23 Nov., 1753.

That this note will meet the eyes of MR. JOHN PAVIN PHILLIPS, who penned th& original query some forty- three years ago, I can hardly hope, still I trust the above in- formation may be of interest to your readers. LEOPOLD A. VIDLER.

The Stone House, Rye, Sussex.

THEOPHANY. In the early Church this name was given to the whole festal period, including Christmas and Epiphany. The name, however, lingered on, apparently for the latter feast. In the twelfth century the tenant of the manor of Chingford promised to find two sureties "infra hoc et Theo- phaniam" ('Domesday of St. Paul's,' p. 135, and introd. p. c). In the fourteenth-century " le tiffanie," p. 15, and " le Thiphanie," p. 57.
 * French Chronicle of London ' it appears as

W. C. B.

HIGH MOUNTAIN. An obvious oversight is responsible for the following :

"The Mountain of Benyoirloch, three thousand and three hundred miles in perpendicular height, rises by a gentle ascent from Loch Era," &c. Newte, 'A Tour in England and Scotland' (1791), p. 227.

Evidently feet should be read instead of miles. AYEAHR.

THE ENVIED FAVOURITE. In Clouston's 'Popular Tales and Fictions,' 1887, vol. ii. p. 456, the following resume of the first in- cident of this well-known story is given :

"The story, we have seen, was known in the twelfth century, or three hundred years before the Turkish romance of the ' Forty Vizirs ' was com- posed ; yet it is curious to find that in the Ottoman version, as in the 'Contes Devots,' the ' Gesta,' and the ' Novelle Antiche,' the envious man pre- tends to the king that his favourite says he has a foul breath ; in the second Indian version from Vernieux the envious guni tells the king that the fakir turns his face away in order that his majesty should not discover from his breath that he is a drunkard."

That the earlier Chinese were familiar with such a story is evident from the following passage in the * Kan-pi-tsze,' written in the third century B.C. several copies of which I have, but not here, so I now reproduce it from the quotation in the ' Yuen-kien-lui- han,' 1703, torn. cclx. fol. 836 :

"[Some years before 306 B.C.] the King of Wei presented a beautiful woman to the King of Tsu,