Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/313

 10 S. VII. MARCH 30, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

257

not relieved till he had paid a money forfeit, when the basket was unloaded, and he allowed to bolt -into the house, where before that the ceremony of breaking a cake of bread over the bride's head had been gone through."

In the same entry it is stated that J " in the evening the ceremony of washing the bridegroom's feet the night before a marriage, then greatly observed and kept up with boisterous joviality, was gone through in all its details."

The time to which the above refers would be circa 1844, and the place was in East Lothian. J. LINDSAY HILSON.

Public Library, Kelso.

"PR/EMUNIRE" (10 S. vii. 189). Cowel "in his ' Interpreter,' 1701, says :

" As to the Etimology of the word Prwmunire, to the Crown by the former Statutes, against the Usurpation of a Foreign Power, which Opinion may receive Ground from the Statute 25 E. 3. stat. 6. cap. 1. But others think it may be de- duced from the Verb Pnemonere, being barbarously turned into Prcemunire ; which corruption is taken .from the rude Interpreters of the Canon Law, who indeed do put the effect Prasmunire many -times for the sufficient cause Prfcmonere, according to the Proverb, He that is well warned, is half- -armed. Of which a reason may be gathered from the form of the Writ. Prjemumre facias prsefatum Praepositum et J.R. Procuratorem, &c., quod tune sint coram nobis, &c. Which words can be re- ferred to none, but the parties charged with the
 * 3ome think it proceedeth from the strength given

Offi

fence. See 3. Inst. fol.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

" MOKE," A DONKEY (10 S. vii. 68, 115). I extract the following from ' Nicknames and Traditions in the Army,' third ed. (Chatham, Gay & Polden, 1891), p. 114:

" On the formation of the ' Land Transport Corps,' the initials were converted into the


 * London Thieving Corps. ' When it was the

Thieves, and also ' Moke Train,' by reason of the horses being replaced with Spanish mules. 'This was soon corrupted into ' Muck Train.' The sobriquet was so unpopular that the mules had to be abandoned and horses substituted. It is now
 * Military Train ' it was called ' Murdering

the 'Army Service Corps.' "

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" LIFE-STAR " FOLK-LORE (10 S. vii. 129, 196). In ' Les Etoiles,' from which I have .lately quoted in ' N. & Q.,' one reads :

" Une fois un cri long, melancolique, parti de 1'etang qui luisait plus bas, monta vers nous en ondulant. Au meme instant une belle etoile filante ..glissa par-dessus nos tetes dans la meme direction, comme si cette plainte que nous venions d'entendre portait une lumiere avec elle. Qu'est-ce que c'est ? me demanda Stephanette a voix basse. XJne ame qui entre en paradis, maitresse, et je fis le signe de la croix. Elle se signa aussi." ' Lettres de mon Moulin,' p. 59.

ST. SWITHTN.

ELEANOR OF CASTILE : HER TOMB (10 S. vii. 8, 57). The following quotation from Mr. W. R. Lethaby's ' Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen,' p. 331, bears upon the former references :

"Surges has argued that neither the effigy of Henry III. nor that of Queen Alianor can be accepted as a portrait, but this can only be true in a very limited sense. They may have been, and were, idealized into types, but to suppose that like- ness was not aimed at is surely absurd, and we have it on record in the account for the King's image that it was made ' ad similitudinem regis Henrici. 1 It is urged that Alianor was over fifty when she died. Miss Strickland says forty-seven, and Alianor was famous for beauty; Gough cites Langtoft as saying that the sculptors of her time made their figures of the Virgin in the likeness of the Queen. The sculptors of the time, indeed, were imitating nature in all their carvings. When we find portraits of vine and maple, oak and thorn, it is most unlikely that the King and Queen were mere impersonal images. Such sculptures as these were never carved ' out of people's heads.' "

A. R. BAYLEY.

" GULA AUGUSTI " (10 S. v. 408, 499 ; vi. 15, 72, 135). At the meeting of the Philological Society on 7 Dec., 1906, some notes were read by Dr. H. Oelsner on a book entitled " A Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language by Robert Kelham, of Lincoln's Inn," since whose time our knowledge of that important subject has advanced a good way. One item of its contents is : " Gule, the beginning or first day of a month." Can it be shown that the term was used of other months than August ? E. S. DODGSON.

192). If the list entitled ' Auctorum No- mina ' in ' Anthologia Oxoniensis,' 1846, is correct, B. means George Booth, and G. B. means George Butler, in that par- ticular book. It is not likely that Linwood, the editor of the book and one of the contri- butors, was mistaken as to the interpretations of the initials, especially in view of the fact that of the three men whom he thanks in his preface George Booth is one :
 * CANTUS HIBERNICI ' (10 S. vii. 9, 73,

" Nee mihi temperare possum quin insignem viri eximii Georgii Booth, S.T.B., humanitatem com- memorem, qui prom to atque alacri officio plurima contulit, et rpganti novam identidem supellectilem in nianus conjecit."

The other two are the Dean of Christ Church and Henry Wellesley, M.A., formerly of Christ Church, then (1846) Vice-Principal of New Inn Hall. Gaisford the Dean and Henry Wellesley are not among the con- tributors.

B. appears in the ' Elenchus Carminum '