Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/203

 io s. TIL MAP, H 2, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

163

in Badenoch i' the days o" the Liosmor ; an" altho' nae tigs grow noo, there "s mony a bony [We] fiag runs vet /er the braes o" baith Badenoch and Lochaber. It was flags' skins, an' no fig blades, that they made claes o'. 'Fiag, ? I maun tell YOU. is Loehaber Gaelic for a deer to this day ; an' fan the auld man was gettin" his reproof for takin' an ai>ple frae the gudewife, a ; the beasties in Liosmor cam roon them, an' amang the rest twa bonnie raes ; an' fan the gudeman said, ' See how miserable we twa are left : there stands a' the bonnie beasties weel clade in their ain hair, an' here we stand shame- faced an" iiakit. Aweel 1 fan the twa raes heard that, they lap oute o' their skins, foo very love to their suffering' maister, as ony true clansman wad do to this day. Fan the gudeman saw this, he drew ae flag's skin on her namsel. an' the tither o'er the ndewife,: noo, let me tell ye. that were the first "

' By this account, Mac, our first parents spoke Gaelic."

"An" fat ither had they to spake, tell me? Our minister says they spoke Hebrew, an' fat "s Hebrew but Gaelic, the warst o" Gaelic, let alane Welsh Gaelic ': "

" He would require proof for this, Mac."

" Proof, man ! disna your Bible say, * Cursed is the ground for Adam's sake,' an' that curse lies on Badenoch an' Lochaber to this day : for if there be in a' Scotland a mair blastit, poverty-stricken pairt than 'ither o' the twa, may Themus Mac-na Toishach's auld een never see it. " Let them contradic' me fa

Grange Villa. Guernsey.

C. T. DURAXD.

ELL FAMILY. (See 9 S. x. 487 ; xi. 77.) I HAVE received the following letter from the Rev. Henry Barber, a ~ \vell-known authority, who gives some interesting infor- mation about the name and family of Ell :

DEAR SIR, I am in receipt of your letter forwarded through my publishers. It is no part of the scope of my work 'to give genealogical informa- tion, but I am 'always willing to trace a name to its earliest source.

You will be pleased to know that, although 1 have not met with the name before, I should say that it is of Xorman origin, and has been corrupted throughout the centuries. The author of ' The Norman People' (H. S. King & Co.. 1874) gives Ell. Elles. or Helles. from Helle or de Heille, from Heille, Beauvais. in Normandy, (rozelin de Heilles la"V.i. witnessed a charter of Henry I., King ol France.

A branch settled in England 1066, and bore a benc azure or [on ?] a field sable, afterwards changed to a fesse. the tinctures remaining the same. The French line bore a bend fusilly. Theobald de Helles was living in the time of K. Stephen. His son gave. temp. Henry II., a tenement at Canterbury to the Hospitallers. In 13th cent. Bertram de Helles was Constable of Dover Castle. Thomas de Helles possessed Helles Court in Ash ttmp. Edw. I. Henry de Helles was M.P. for Kent temp. Edw. III. Gilbert. Viscount of Kent, 13-35, and his arms remain Azure, a bend argent.

In the church of Ash the arms are Argent, a chevron sable, between three leopards' fa f being the foundation of the modern arms.

The family was spread throughout Kent and Surrey, arid 'from it probably derived Sir M Hill, ancestor of the Marquises of Downshire.

I do not think that Ell is a corruption of Hill,, though Hill may possibly be derived from Helles in some cases. Hill is, however, generally an English local name, a contraction of "at-hilL' I cannot find Ell or Helles in the Roll of Fines and Oblations of King John. It may be in the Hundred Rolls, but the records of the County of Kent might be searched with ad vant ... HENRY BARBER.

In the ' Calendar of State Papers. Domestic, 1633-4,' p. 10, we find " 1633, 37, IT. Certifi- cate of Thomas Ejll, the High Constable


 * ' ; but I have been unable to discover

where he was High Constable.

In ' Calendar of Border Papers : Vol. II. 1595-1603,' at p. 797, will be found a letter from George Ell to Robin of Pichell, dated 12 Sept., 1602.

In vol. xxx. of Sussex Archaeological Collections, in a note on p. 141, there is reference to a suit in time of K. John

' between the family of Helles and Manasser de Hastings concerning a earucate of laud near Faver- sham (abbreviatio Placitorum). The Grange was held to Henry HL in serjeanty by Manasser de H. (Hasted, iv. 236) ; and 10 Hen. ILL there was a fine levied between Gilbert de Helles and Robert de Hastings, of land in Gillingham. Ermine, three lozenges gules, was one of the coats of Helles."

In Sussex Arch. Col., vol. v. p. 242, amongst names of priests in the Deanery of Hastings, appear- '* Thomas Helles." H. G. ELL.

Christchurch. Xew Zealand.

" SUPAWX ? " : ITS ORIGIN. This Ame- rican term for a kind of porridge has been in use from the earliest period. The French colonists wrote it soupane, the Dutch supaen. One is surprised to find it de- scribed in the ' Century Dictionary ' as a most inaccurate statement. The words pone and supawn are both of American Indian origin, but they are from entirely different roots. I need not go into the history of pone, as that is being dealt with by Dr. Murray. Supau-n is an Indian past participle, from a verb meaning to soften by water, boil soft. In the late Dr. Trum- bulFs ' Xatick Dictionary ' it is printed saupd-un. Strachey's Virginian vocabulary (circa 1615) includes it as " asapan, hasty pudding." The Abenaki form is given by the Frenchman Rasles as nteanbann, but in Laurent's more modern Abenaki vocabulary (1884) it appears as " nsobon, corn soup." JAS. PLATT, Jun.
 * 4 probably connected with pone." This is