Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/356

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. APRIL u, iooa

museum of the Collegio Romano, Rome. Besides its interest in representing the cross as faw-shaped is that of the clothed figure. The body of our Lord on very early crucifixes, and on those belonging to this country in Anglo-Saxon times, was always clothed. A pamphlet, by Dora Raphael Garrucci, S.J., of Rome, gives details of the discovery from which the above particulars are taken.

R. OLIVER HESLOP. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

According to Dr. Albert Hauk's ' Real- encyclopaedie fiir Protestantische Theqlogie ' (vol. xi., 1902), the earliest representation of the Crucifixion is on the door of Santa Sabina at Rome, as mentioned by HIPPO- CLIDES, which cannot be older than the middle of the fifth century. An ivory tablet in the British Museum, from Upper Italy, is of about the same age. The writer of the article calls attention to the well-known fact that in all the early examples the Saviour is represented alive, and without any sign of suffering. L. L. K.

THE HARE AND EASTER (10 th S. iv. 306). The circumstance of Easter Day being always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens on or next after the 21st of March, and of the hare being associated witl both Easter and the moon, renders it pro- bable that the hare, so far as Northern mythology is concerned, became identified with the Easter moon through the Druidical worship of Eostre, whose name, in the form of Ashtar, was discovered by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, and was the Anglian equivalent also of Astarte, the Babylonian queen of heaven. Of this worship of the goddess of spring not only is the Coleshill custom of catching the hare, a relic probably, but also that of Hallatpn, in Leicestershire, where, as will be seen in Hazlitt's 'Tenures and Land Customs' (1874, pp. 78 and 141), the rector or vicar is called upon every Easter Monday, as a condition upon which he holds certain lands, to provide, among other comestibles to be scrambled for at a place called Hare-pie Bank, two hare pies, followed by sports of a festival character. An old village custom in Germany was eating " Easter-hare" ; and hares were caught at Easter for providing a public meal, a custom best known in Pomerania.

Bede alludes to the festivals connected with the worship of Eostre thus (I quote from Elton's 'Origins of History,' 1882, p. 408) :

"Antiqui Anglorum populi, gens meet apud

eos aprilis Esturmonath, quondam a dea illorum

quse Eostra vocabatur et cui in illo festa cele- brantur, nomen habuit." * De Temp. Rat.' c. 13.

In Germany, where the Easter-egg custom is very tenaciously observed to this day, a nest is in some parts made of moss, and a hare is set in it. This being hidden in the house or garden, the children are sent to Icok for the eggs that the hare has laid. In many districts, says Mr. Cremer ('Easter Eggs/ p. 11), these eggs are used in preparing cakes in the form of a hare. In Saxony there used to be a saying that "the Easter hare always brings tlie Easter Egg." The process of reasoning by which the hare became so un- mistakably identified with the moon at Easter-time, and with egg-laying, is perhaps traceable not only to its *' form " resembling a bird's nest, but also to the rapidity of its motion having suggested the flight of a bird, whence it was easy to induce the belief that she laid eggs like a bird. The Mongolian doctrine, says Grimrn, in his * Teutonic Mythology' (S tally brass ed., 1883, vol. ii. p. 716), sees in the shadows of the moon the figure of the hare ; and in Ceylon a hare takes the place of a man, in the moon. Buddha, when a hermit on earth, lost him- self in a wood, where he met a hare, who snowed him the way. Buddha thanked the animal, and added, "Mr. Hare, I am both hungry and poor, and cannot reward you." "If you are hungry," replied the hare, " am at your service ; make a fire, kill, and roast me." Buddha made the fire, and the hare instantly jumped into it ; but Buddha caught hold of it and flung it into the moon, where it still remains. A French gentleman returned from Ceylon said, "The Cingalese would often beg permission to look at the hare through my telescope, and would ex- claim in raptures that they saw it."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. MRS. FlTZHERBERT AND GEORGE IV. 'S

CORONATION (10 th S. v. 227). The absence of nearly all records of prior coronations in the archives of the College of Arms was a marked and unfortunate feature in making prepara- tions for the coronation of King Ed ward VII. and Queen Alexandra ; it is not, therefore, believed that any trace can be found as to- the issue of a card of admission to West- minster Abbey for the Mrs. Fitzherbert to- the coronation of George IV.

The Lord Howard of Effingham who signed Mrs. Fitzherbert's ticket was the (Protestant) Deputy Earl Marshal at that ceremony, as the functions of the Hereditary Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, could not be carried out by the Duke in person (owing to his being a,