Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/95

 io* s. ii. JULY 23, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

to explain, but the old cold harbrough in I vivals far more numerous than supposed

Stowe, and the cold herbergh for which I which are generally believed to be derived,

have already given a reference. To derive as a rural custom, from the Roman Floralia,

this Middle English herbercjh, with its charac- or games in honour of the goddess Flora, and

teristic initial h and final guttural, from which in their turn probably superseded

Latin or French (which greatly dislikes both), similar rites among those ancient Britons

is the merest perversity, and shows how who came under the influence of the Romans,

easily all inconvenient evidence is ignored. In parts of Ireland similar festivals occur in

We have a Market Harborough to this day, which the mummers correspond to the Eng-

whioh is due neither to the Latin arbor nor lish Morris - dancers (see Croker's * Fairy

the French arbre. And what is to be done Legends and Traditions ') : but the universal

with the London church named " Sancti characteristic of the English observances is Nicholai Coldabbey " in the * Liber Custu- I the " processioning " through the streets

marum,' collum ?

p. 230] Is that also from collis or WALTER W. SKEAT.

ISABELLINE AS A COLOUR (10 th S. i. 487).

I can give an earlier date than 1859 for the use of the word. Dr. Horsfield, F.L.S., F.G.S.,

with flowers, garlands, nosgays, or " tutties." In the county instance mentioned by MR. JENKINS the " round dolls " seem to be a multiplied edition of the "May Lady." A custom prevailed in Cambridge of children having a figure dressed in a grotesque man-

read a paper on 20 June, 1826, on a species ner, called a " May Lady," before which they

of Ursus from Nepaul, and says :

" The general colour of the hairy covering of the specimen presented to the Society is tawny, or very pale reddish-brown, with an obscure tint of dirty yellow, verging to isabella." Transactions of the Lin.ne.an Society of London, vol. xv. p. 333.

Jos. D. HOOKER.

[Isabella is the word in the above extract, and 1600 is the earliest date for that word in the
 * N.E.D. 3 The year 1859 referred to isabelline.]

SCOTCH WORDS AND ENGLISH COMMENTA- TORS (10 th S. i. 261, 321, 375, 456). One more reference to this subject may perhaps be tolerated, especially as a significant illustra- tion is available. In a prominent London

set a table having on it wine, &c., and this is believed to be derived from Maia (May), the mother of Mercury, to whom sacrifices were offered on the first day, thus explaining the fore-mentioned custom (Audley, in a quoted in Brand's * Antiquities ').
 * Companion to the Almanack,' 1802, p. 21,

As to the horn-blowing, once a common feature of May Day celebrations, Hearne in his preface to Robert of Gloucester's * Chro- nicle' says :

" 'Tis no wonder, therefore, that upon the jollities on the first of May formerly, the custom of blow-

ing with, and drinking in, horns so much prevailed, which, though it be now generally disus'd, yet the

W Af" 9r"r,, V " iY lu " 10 "y ^"" I custom of blowing them prevails at 'this season, even periodical of 2o June a reviewer, describing to thia day at 5 xford / t o remind people of the an adventurous character m a new work of pleasantness of that part of the year, which ought

!.: i.1 j._l-l_ I _ Jl'l 1 -.1 i^.5 Tir>

_ VUV J vwt, i

to create mirth and gayety," &c. P. 18.

At Tilsworth, in Bedfordshire, the young men, I believe, still go round the village with a load of May, leaving a branch for every maiden in each house ; and in the villages of the Thames Valley round Oxford the children go "garlanding," or carrying flowers from house to house, singing doggerel verses and

fiction, has the inscrutable hardihood to remark, "His plans have certainly 'gang agley ' when this volume ends." The playful experts who delight in the parading of " pawky," "canny," and the rest will have some difficulty in surpassing this flight.

THOMAS BAYNE.

"KiCK THE BUCKET" (10 th S. i. 227, 314, ,

412). I cannot accept your correspondents' claiming largesse, pne of the flowers used explanation of this slang phrase. I do not formerly for garlanding was the marsh man-

1 gold, which the peasant poet Clare calls the horse-blob." The Helston Furry -Faddy seems to be of like origin, transferred, how- ever, from 1 to 8 May. The connexion of the custom originally with sun - worship is in- dicated by the necessity (which in some cases has lapsed, however) for rising early to meet the sun. This is the condition when May morning is observed from Magdalen Tower, Oxford ; and it used to be the custom at four o'clock on the morning of May Day for

like to give my own, lest I should encourage suicide. Does the 'E.D.D.' illustrate face*

a queer-shaped block of wood? I suggest that a bucket was suspended to catch the blood of the calves, ana sometimes used for a weight. The wooden block that took its place may have got this name. A slaughtered animal surely does not kick. T. WILSON. Harpenden.

NORTH DEVON MAY DAY CUSTOM (10 th S. - ~

i. 406). MR. H. T. JENKINS'S interesting note young persons of both sexes to proceed to directs due attention to one of those sur- \ the summit of Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh,