Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/234

 192 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io«-s. iv. SEPT. 2,1905. " In by," inside (" come in by "). " Out by," outside. " Moudiewarp," mole. " Hogs," wether sheep (of one year old). "Daft "or "soft," silly. "Sad," an unbaked cake. "Fettle up," to "fix." "Fettle," in good, or bad, condition. Yorkshire reserve, alluded to by your corre apondent, seems much akin to what strikes strangers as ungraciousness in the Scotch. T. F. D. MR. DUNNINGTON - JEFFERSON says : " The bridge over a ditch in front of a gate is called a 'goatstock.'" Air. Rut ton, in Arch. Cant., vol. xx. 243, in an article on Sandgate Castle, giving extracts from the building accounts, .1539-40, has a note of interrogation after "gostock." Ap- parently he was puzzled as to its use. The extract is as follows :— "Iron for ' gostock'[?] the which the Alnmn [the German engineer Von Haahenperg] advised, l.t—A ID. As, of course, to the castle there was a bridge, may not the two words goatstock and gostock be identical in derivation ? R. J. FYNMORE. Sandgate. As second component part of place-names •by occurs also in Germany : Brumby, Barby, Steckby, are villages on the Middle Elbe. By is pronounced as bee; the y is only, as in English, the representative of a final i. Aldwark has its counterpart in Altwerk, Neuwerk. To "stobb," "stobben," answers our der Stubben, the stump of a tree; " tyke," our Anhalt word die take (with long a), used for a cur. Your "gares" are called Gehren in the March of Brandenburg; to "sag" is sich sacken. In Low German der start is the only term used for tail, and Wippstert is the wagtail. In High German it is preserved in die Pflugiterz(e), the plough-handle. " Mouldiewarp " is our Maulwurf. "Daft" is the Low German do/=stupid. G. KRUEGER. Berlin. " While " seems used in Yorkshire (and in Yorkshire only) in the sense of the immediate future. Thus "I'll see you while morning" means " in the morning." " He moved to me " means " He took off his hat to me." Within the last twenty years I have come across old chap-books of the Yorkshire dia- lect, such as ' Thomas and Betty at Hickleton Fair," which booklets are very copious. JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A. I should like to add to ray reply that I never heard the word " start" used for tail in Lincolnshire. With us it means a straight handle, as the "start" of a fireshovel, a saucepan, or old-fashioned porringer. " One other plain sawcer, gilt within, having two sterts of the which starts one is broken off" (Lincoln Cathedral Inventory, 1536, in ' Monasticon,' vol. viii. p. 128). In the 'Ripon Act Book ' (Surtees Soc.), 1468, there is to be found the following bilingual entry : "Unam ollam enniam [sic] sterttvd " (p. 137). EDWARD PEACOCK. [A bow or any form of inclination or courtesy constitutes "moving" in the West Riding.] "THE FATE OF THE TfiACYS" (10th S. iv. 128).—Morthoe is a pleasant seaside village about five miles west of llfracombe. Woola- combe-Tracy, hard by, was long the seat_ of the ancient family of Tracy, and tradition says Sir William Tracy lived there a secluded life after his participation in the murder of Thomas a Becket. The late R. N. Worth, F.G.S., in his ' History of Devonshire' (1886), records:— "The little parish of Morthoe, which border* Morte Bay, has a niche alike in history and folk- lore. A tomb in the church [St. Marys] to 'Syr Wiliame de Tracey' was recorded by the elder his- torians as that of the Tracy murderer of A Becket. Risdon is confident upon the point, and Westcote joken upon the assumption that some ill-affected persons stole the leaden sheets in which Sir William's body was wrapped, leaving him 'in danger of taking cold.' But Morthoe is an old Tracy seat, and a chantry, in this very church, was founded by a rector of Morthoe who was un- doubtedly buried there According to West' Country tradition, after the murder of the Arch- bishop 'The Tracys Had the wind in their faces' wherever they went or from whatever quarter it might blow; and, assuredly, high and rugged Morthoe was as likely a place as any to secure a remarkable fulfilment. Morthoe is ' High Morte,' and Morte is fancifully interpreted to mean ' death.' Beyond Morte Point is Morte Stone, the cause of many a shipwreck, which local lore says will be removed when it is taken in hand by a husband who can say from experience the grey mare is not the better horse. There is, indeed, a version of the tradition which places the power in the hands of a number of wives who have the sovereignty, but adds, sagely, that enough have not been got together to produce the result. Morthoe supplies material for the wise saw that it is the place which ' God made last, and the devil will take first,' a saying that is matched in North- umberland at Elsdon, and probably in other rugged neighbourhoods." Sir William de Tracy was a son of Oliver, Lord Tracy, Baron of Barnstaple. A cave near Morthoe, known as the Crockhorn Cavern, is reputed to be the spot where the murderer livea in hiding—lived in penitence, and died in sorrow—and it is told bow, in