Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/446

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io*s. V.MAY 12,1906.

day) has become Kimmeridge. Thus both in *' Little England beyond Wales" and in Dorsetshire the Celtic o (y) has been modified in the same way, and from the same cause, namely, English influence.

A similar influence (i.e., Teutonic) will account for the first i in Cimbri, which I see no necessity to look on as " Indo-European i "
 * ,t all, but simply the Celtic o (?/) modified.

Plutarch says that the Germans called robbers Cimbri, while Festus says that it was in the Gaulish tongue the term was so employed. What I have mentioned about the uses of cymmeryd and cyniryd will, I hope, satisfactorily explain the discrepancy, and suggest that poor Taffy was libelled by the Teuton long before he began to vex the Welsh Marches.

Before leaving the philological question I would just add that " Cumra's " for Welshmen is given by Handle Holme (1688 ; see 'N.E.D.' under 'Cymric 3 for the quotation), and that "Cymres," accented on the first syllable, is >.W. dialect for Welshwoman.

In his fifth Rhind Lecture ('The Spread of Gaelic in Scotland,' Scottish Rev., xvii. 339, April, 1891) Prof. Rhys points out the import of the name Strath Earn as evidence of the

gresence of Ulidian Picts in that district, ut it was not the business of the learned professor at the moment to infer the presence of Goidels there also, otherwise he might have drawn attention to Comrie, absolutely identical in sound, and practically so in spelling, with the name of his native country. In an interesting little work on the 'Antiqui- ties of Strathearn,' by John Shearer, jun. <Crieff, Strathearn Herald office, 1883, third ed.), I find :

"The Earn, on issuing from the loch, flows easterly, in a very irregular direction, with many dinks and windings in its course through Strathearn, until it reaches the Tay, a few miles below Perth.

The tract of country which this river intersects

comprehends a space of about thirty miles; but the real length of the stream is much greater, as it describes innumerable and very beautiful wind- ings It is increased every mile it advances in its

course by the additions of rivulets and streams, the chief of which are the waters of Ruchil, Lednock,

Turret, Machney, Ruthven, Dunning, and May

The parish of Comrie consists of the upper part of the valley of the Earn, and four contiguous glens. ......The parish town of Comrie is pleasantly

situated on the north bank of the Earn, where it is

joined by the Lednock [The name] is derived

from the Gaelic combruidh [?], which signifies the confluence of the torrents. These are the Earn and the Ruchil, whose streams join a few yards west- ward of the church."

Curiously enough, if this little book is to be trusted, it is not by floods, as one would have expected from its situation, that Comrie seems

to have been troubled, but by earthquakes. But further north there was a famous deluge, the devastations of which have been care- fully recorded and described by Sir Thomas Lauder Dick in his 'Account of the Great Floods of August, 1829, in the Province of Moray, and adjoining Districts'; and a fascinating paper on this book and its story appeared in Blackivood, August, 1830, from the pen of ^ " Christopher North " (Prof. Wilson). This paper, which I almost know by heart, will well repay careful perusal.

I have referred to this great deluge in order that the reader may consider it in connexion with Strabo's account of the Cimbri. The reasons which Strabo incredu- lously repeats (but fortunately does repeat) for the migrations of the Cimbri and their appearance in Italy are every one of them quite credible, if for tidal inundations we substitute Alpine deluges. A strong additional argument to prove that the Cimbri were Alpine Celts would, I think, be furnished by what Strabo says of the piteous appeal to Augustus made by the forlorn refugees in the dreary downs of Jutland. They must have been aware that they were beyond the reach of Roman vengeance or Roman greed in that remote corner of the " barbarian " world ; but they were longing to return to the smiling valleys and rushing rivers of their lost Alpine home, with its ranz des vaches and the " rain- drenched graves" of their ancestors. But such things were beyond Strabo's ken, and he says only that their prayers were successful, and their precious caldron graciously accepted. The "caldron of know- ledge " into which Roman blood had flowed, and from which misinterpreted signs had come, had once more played its sinister part, and deceived its brave and simple votaries. Did they then turn their eyes to the North Sea, venture across it, and find a mountain home once more about Whernside or Peny- gant, among kindred, but probably hostile tribes? It is not unlikely.

J. P. OWEN.

'POLICY OF PIN- PRICKS." As this phrase has been a good deal nibbled at in * N. & Q.' (see the numerous references under 'Pro- verbs and Phrases ' in the General Index to the Ninth Series) it may be of interest to give the (very compressed) form in which the result of actual research into its history will appear in the next section of the ' New English Dictionary' :

" The French figurative use of a phrase analogous to pin-prick, viz., coup $ epingle., 'pin-stroke,' goes