Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/97

 io«.8.iv.jDLT22,i905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 77 Scotland, and this is especially the case with respect to the rites of sepulture. It has long been, and still is, the custom in the north for the nearest male relative to stand at the head of the grave and hold the cord next to him by which the coffin is lowered. This is the place of a husband in laying the remains of his wife in the grave, of a father burying his son, and of the eldest son attending the funeral of his father. A near relative takes his place at the foot of the grave, and kinsmen and friends stand at each side and assist in lowering the coffin. J. GRIGOR. The custom in Scotland of the chief mourner holding the principal cord in the lowering of the coffin is alluded to in ' Poems' by the Rev. John Black, of Butley, in Suffolk. 1799, p. 10, in "An Elegy on the Author's Mother, who was buried in the churchyard of Dunichen, in Scotland," which contains the stanza :— Oh, how my soul was griev'd when 1 let fall The striog that dropt her silent in the grave! Yet thought I then I heard her spirit call: " Safe 1 have pass'd through death's o'erwhelming wave." See Brand's ' Popular Antiquities,' revised by Sir Henry Ellis (Bohn, 1854), vol. ii. p. 274. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. I believe it to be the custom throughout Scotland for the chief mourner to lower the head of the coffin into the grave, the second the foot, and those further in degree the sides, the position of each mourner being indicated to him on a card sent before the funeral by the undertaker. R. BARCLAY-ALLARDICE. Lostwithiel, Cornwall. PINCHBECK FAMILY (10th S. iii. 421; iv. 33). —The doggerel lines quoted by MR. W. H. PINCHBECK were, when I was at school in Somersetshire, fifty years ago, well known as a schoolboys' catch for the innocent new boy and for our unwary sisters; and they were also familiar to a younger generation seven years ago at St. Albans Grammar School: bat in each of these cases the first line read as follows:— Adam and Eve and Pinch me, and the object of the ditty can be clearly diagnosed from this reading of the first line, coupled with the obviously necessary reply to the question asked in the fourth line. The substitution of the surname "Pinchbeck "for " Pinch me" in the first line would seem to destroy the whole point of the catch. F. BE H. L. I venture to think that the surname was originally derived from Pinchbeck, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, rather than the nick- name of somebody remarkable for having a pincer-like mouth or nose, as has been ingeniously surmised. Domesday Book, in one instance, registers the place as Picebech. ST. SWITHIN. The first line of the doggerel quoted is. in Devonshire, always given "Adam and Eve and Pinch me," while the remaining lines are as you print them. And the Devon version appears to me to be the correct one, inasmuch as the questioner, on getting from the ques- tionee the obvious answer, " Pinch me," never fails to administer a pinch. FRED. C. FROST, F.S.I. Teign mouth. HOLLICKK OR HOLLECK, CO. MIDDLESEX (10th S. iii. 387, 435; iv. 36).—There is always a risk of confusion when we find contemporaries bearing the same or similar names. We find from the I P.M. of Philip Basset, G November, 56 Hen. III., that the deceased held Elsefeld manor in Oxfordshire, in exchange for a manor of Walter de Morton called " Ledred in Soserey " (Leatherhead, in Surrey). This shows that a certain Walter de Morton existed temp. Henry III., but for the reasons given in my former reply, I think that the owner of Haliwick manor was Walter de Horton. There are, of course, several places from which he might have derived his sur- name, the nearest to " Little Bernete" being Horton in Bucks, opposite Stanwell on the other side of the river Uolne. Norden says that Muswell Hill was also called Pinsenall Hill, and a variant of this word is Pensnothyll. The first syllable of the word reminds us of Penshurst and Pens^ hanger, and would seem to point to a wooded hill. I would, therefore, tentatively suggest that the constituents of the name are the A.-S. jnn, a pine, hnut, a nut, and hyll, a hill, the complete word signifying Pine Nut (or Pine Cone) Hill. W. F. PRIDEAUX. The oldest form of this place-name appears to be " Halewik " (cf. the Hale, Tottenham)— generally a piece of flowing water, and very common. A. H. JOSIAS CATZIUS (10th S. iv. 10).—It is more than probable that he is a fictitious charac- ter, and " the gathering together of the Jews in great bodies under" him did not take place at all. There is a copy of the ' Doomes- day' in the British Museum among the pamphlets collected by George III. The press-mark is E. 383 (23). It is a short tract of six small quarto pages, one and a half of which are blank and one is occupied by the title. The purpose of the gathering of the