Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/50

 38 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. iv. JULY s, 1905. is decisively in favour of derivation from an Anglo-French (Norman) verb loster, which does not happen to have been found as yet, though it may turn up any day. Such a Norman word could, of course, be of real Norman, i.e., Norwegian, origin, and may very well be connected with a large family of words in that language which seem to give the right idea, when we remember that the M.E. hasten included the idea of being noisy or clamorous. The Norwegian glossaries by Aasen and Ross contain these words : bans, proud, boastful; bausa, to bounce out, to go blindly forward ; bause, a proud man : baust, adv., greatly ; bus (Dan. and Swed. cms), bounce ! plump! interj.; busa (Dan. buse, Swed. busa), to rush out upon, rush forward headlong, to fling rudely; bus, blunt, downright; busta,io break out, to be violent; busna, to be violent. Cognate words are numerous ; as E. Friesic biisen, to be noisy or violent; Low G. buus- dern, to storm, be violent; buusdert, a violent storm, tempest: buusdrig, boisterous (Berg- haus); busen, so., a crash (id.); bustern, to scold severely (id.); Norw. busing, harsh, severe (Ross). Still more important are the Norw. bausta, to be violent, to be noisy or boisterous; baicste, a reckless man; bausten, adj., audaciously precipitate; for this base baust- would exactly give A.-F. bost-er, just as L. cause gives F. chose, and L. encaustum gives Ital. inchiostro. Many more related words exist, but .the above may suffice. MR. MAYHKW kindly tells me that a similar origin may account for the mysterious word boisterous ; just as L. claus- trum accounts for cloister. I think that bustle, verb, may also be allied. WALTER W. SKEAT. CHILD EXECUTED FOR WITCHCRAFT (10th S. iii. 468).—The charges against Mrs. Mary Hickes, and the execution of the child, have been fully discussed in 'N. & Q.,' and proved to be untrue. See 1" S. v. 395, 514; 2nd S. v. 503. "A slander well hoed grows like the devil." EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. In 1716 Mrs. Hickes and her daughter, nine years old, were hanged at Hunting- don for selling their souls to the devil and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. This was the last execution for witchcraft in England. JOHN RADCLIFFE. [For i In- last execution for witchcraft in England aee 7'" S. viii. 486 ; ix. 35, 117.] AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS (10th S. iii. 469).— Kingsley's " lame dogs over stiles " is from a letter of invitation to Thomas Hughes to join him in a tramp in North Wales. The third line of the four quoted should read "if we meet them." The lines were written in the visitors' book at the " Prince Llewellyn " Inn, Beddgelert, and it has been stated that this was their original appearance, and that the epistle was never actually sent to Hughes. H. SNOWDEN WARD. Hadlow, Kent. " Do the work that's nearest," &c., is from 'Invitation to Tom Hughes,'!. 12 from end, Macmillan's collected edition of the ' Poems' (1884), p. 316. H. K. ST. J. S. The song commencing " I 've no money, so you see," occurs in a vaudeville entitled 'The Loan of a Lover,' by J. R. Planche, produced 29 Sept., 1834, at the Olympic Theatre, and was sung by Madame Vestris in the character of Gertrude; the principal male part of Peter Spyk, the simple lover of Gertrude, being played by Robert Keeley. In a note to the printed edition of the play it is stated that the song, the air of which is said to be taken from ' Faut 1'Oublier,' is published by Chap- pell, 50, New Bond Street. JNO. HEBB. [MR. W. DOUGLAS, T. G., MR. H. G. HOPE, MR. E. LATHAM, ST. SWITHIN, and MR. J. B. WAIXK- WRIGHT also thanked for replies.] WAGE ON THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS (10th S. iii. 407, 455). — PROF. SKEAT refers to- "Edgar" as author of a prose version of Wace. We should read Edgar Taylor, who sprang from the well-known Norfolk family, including a printer represented by Taylor & Francis, Mrs. Reeve, and Capt. Meadows Taylor—all quite distinct from the Stanford Rivers family, so distinguished by the name of Isaac. A. HALL. BESANT ON DR. WATTS (10th S. iii. 489;.— I remember when I was at school at Rich- mond, Surrey, in 1865, having pointed out to me a spot in Richmond Park, overlooking the Thames Valley, where, my informant said, Dr. Watts stood when he wrote his- hymn commencing "There is a land of pure delight," and containing the lines— Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand drest in living preen. Although the view of the green fields beyond the shining river may well have inspired such a thought, I have since been led to believe that the information I then received was quite erroneous. In 'Our Hymns: their Authors and Origin,' by Josiah Miller, M.A. (1866), on p. 96, I find the following paragraph :— " Local tradition connects this hymn [' There is a laud of pure delight '1 with the neighbourhood of