Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/514

 422

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JUNE 2, igoe.

and many others which I remember not, with divers pictures in the windows which we could not reach, neither could they help us to raise ladders; so we left a warrant with the con- stable to do it in fourteen days [taken with omission from 103, Cochie = Covehithe].

We brake down a pot of [sic] holy water [104, Rushmere: We brake down a pot for holy water]

St Andrew with his cross and St. Catherine with her wheel [106, Frostenden : identical]

and we took down the cover of the font [109, South- wold : and to take down, &c.]

and the four evangelists and a triangle for the

Trinity [111, Blyford : and the 4 evangelists

and a triangle in the porch for the Trinity]

a superstitious picture of St. Peter and his keys [117, Polstead : forty-five superstitious pictures: one of Peter with his keys]

an eagle and a lion with wings [120, Laxfield : identical].

In Bacon's isle [147, Dennington : identical]

was a friar with a shaven crown, praying to God in these words, Miserere, mei deus, which we brake down [121, Frimley : identical].

We brake a holy water font in the chancel [128, Floughton : identical, minus " we brake "].

We rent to pieces a hood and surplices [129. Elm- sett : we rent apieces there the hood and sur- plice].

In the chancel was Peter pictured on the windows with his heels upwards and John Baptist and twenty more superstitious pictures, which we brake [137. Allington : In the chancel was Peter pictured and crucified with his heels upward : and there was John Baptist: and 10 more superstitious pictures in the church]

and IHS, the Jesuit's badge, in the chancel window [139, Holton : identical].

In Bacon's isle [147, Dennington]

twelve superstitious pictures of angels and crosses and a holy water font [147, Dennington : in Bacon's isle, 9 pictures of angels and crosses and a holy water font]

and brasses with superstitious inscriptions.

And in the cr*?s alley we took up brazen figures

and inscriptions, orapro nobis,

We brake down a cross on the steeple, and three stone crosses in the chancel, and a stone cross in the porch. [Vide passim: e.g., 11, 12, 108.]

I do not think much doubt can be felt by any one with regard to the character of this document. Its origin must be fairly recent. Not much can be argued from the style, but I notice that in two of the few clauses for which no exact equivalent is found in Dow- sing's ' Journal ' the expression " brasses " is used. This Dowsing never employs, so far as I see. His phrase is "brass inscription" or "inscription in (or of) brass."

My object in setting out this forgery as I have done is first to call attention to its character, and next to ask whether any of your readers can help me to trace it to its source. M. R. JAMES.

The Lodge, King's College, Cambridge.

"BUNG" AND "TUN."

IN a reply on the ' " Hamberbonne " of Wheat '(ante, p. 270) I ventured to assume the past existence of a stage in the develop- ment of the present senses of the word " bung," and to suggest that it originally meant a barrel, the present senses (1, as a bunghole ; 2, as a bunghole-stopper) being transfers from the original sense. The earlier forms, "boung," "bongue," come from the French bunyne, which I find in Godefroy's dictionary of old French, with a quotation which requires some study to get its exact meaning, yet which shows that the word related to a barrel, and certainly meant neither bunghole nor bunghole-stopper. It is given as a terme de tonnelier, a term in the cooper's trade, a very vague explanation. The quotations, from the 'Ordonnances de la Ville de Reims,' probably of the fourteenth century, contain words on which Godefroy throws but little light, and I therefore transcribe the passages in the hope that readers of 'N. & Q.' acquainted with the making of casks in the wine-districts of France may help to elucidate the subject.

"Se aucuns achate escharssons au port ou a la riviere, il convenra qu'il les compte la journ^e ou le lendemain qu'il les avera achate, bungne a bungne ; et avera li premiers achateres le premier cent, et comptera ades."

" Qui achetera cerciaulx pour revendre, il con- vient qu'il face ploier la bungne chascun par lui, sens merler d'autres cerciaulx, sens oster nux des cerciaulx."

What are escharssons ? Godefroy makes th& word a synonym of eschallassons = echalas, the laths used to support vines. But while vine-laths have nothing to do with barrel- making, the broad laths from which barrel- staves are shaped might be so called. The root of the word is ais, a plank (often pro- nounced am). In Italian this is asse, of which the diminutive is assicella, shingle ; in Provencal escalas is a lath, escanela to splifc into laths. JSchantillon^ whence our " scant- ling," is split wood ; amongst other kinds, that used for bakers' tallies. Echandole is shingle. Escharssons'^ a word of this group, probably meaning the broad pieces of wood collectively called merrain, intended to be shaped into staves, and obtained by splitting a log of oak radially from the centre. These, when fashioned by the cooper's adze, doloire- (L. dolabra), became douelles or douves, staves. These staves were sold by the hundred.

" Chacun cent de douelles de bois appelle merain, servant a faire poincons et fusts neufs. 1577."- Littre.

Next, what is bungne ? It can only be a*