Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/161

 io s. VIIL AUG. 17, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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seventeenth century which is known to have occupied a given time in delivery ? I should be glad of any information bearing on the point. W. J. C.

ANTONY GILBY. Can any of your readers inform me whether there is in existence a portrait of Antony Gilby or Gillbee, the celebrated English divine ? He was one of the translators of the Geneva Bible, and a personal friend of Calvin, Knox, and others. Gilby was also a writer of a number of theo- logical works. He died at Ashby, in Eng- land ; but where he was buried is another question, that I should like answered.

J. E. HOLLAND. National Liberal Club.

" GOWDIKE." In the " Pains Book " of the Local Court of Watermillock (Cumber- land) the tenants are frequently fined for not repairing their " Gowdike." What is this ? It is in neither ' N.E.D.' nor ' E.D.D.' It can scarcely be a form of " Gaveldike." HENRY BRIERLEY.

WASHINGTON, U.S.A. Where can the old place-names of the city and State of Washington be traced ? Paris Town and Stevens Town, said to be in this city or State, belonged to the Hon. Joshua Pierce, and afterwards to his married daughter or daughters. American papers, please copy.

W. J. GREEN.

76, Alexandra Road, N.W,

[' Lippincott's New Gazetteer,' edited by Augelo and Louis Heilprin, and published last year, con- tains a large number of American geographical names.]

HARRIET LEE. Can any of your corre- spondents give me an account of the life and works of this lady, and any anecdotes connected with her ? There is a short sketch of her in the ' D.N.B.,' but further particulars would oblige. STELLARIUS.

[Have you consulted the works named at the end of Miss Elizabeth Lee's article in the 'D.N.B.,' including ' The Annual Register' and The Gentle- man's Magazine ?]

ELDER-BUSH FOLK-LORE. According to Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell in The Queen for 8 June, the elder is " Christ's tree " in Shropshire. Does any British or continental folk-lore point to a pre- Christian belief connecting this bush, which flowers at midsummer, with sun - gods honoured at the summer solstice ?

In certain English counties to cut down an elder-bush is unlucky. What other super- stitions attach to the shrub ? A. B.

Implies!

" MARU."

(10 S. vii. 268, 318.)

AT the risk of repeating in places what Prof. Chamberlain has already said in his ' Things Japanese ' a work at present inaccessible here I have prepared this reply from my memoranda culled from various indigenous sources.

Positively unlearned must he be who believes that maru has the sense of " going," " moving onwards," acts which are properly expressed humbly by the word mairu.

The word maru is given in Ootsuki's dictionary ' Genkai,' 150th ed., 1905, as a later form of maro, said to be a com- bination of ma, " faith," and ro, an ex- pletive, therefore signifying " faithful one," a suffix suitable to personal names. " Some scholars hold," it adds, " that maro origin- ally meant ' round,' ' without angle,' whence in allusion to the speaker's being without wisdom, its employment as a humility- name of the firstperson [singular, masculine]."

Saito Hikomaro's ' Katahisashi,' 1853 (ed. in the ' Hyakka Setsurin,' 1891, vol. ii. pp. 145, 146), contains a brief chapter upon this subject, of which I give the following translation, the inserted numerals referring to my comments subjoined :

"At its inception maro was a humility -name

applied to the speaker himself (1) For the sake

or humility, too, many men had their individual names suffixed with maro or [its variant] maru (2). Subsequently it became a term of endearment ; so, in the ' Manyoshu ' [an ancient anthology, for whose date see Mr. F. V. Dickins, * Primitive and Mediaeval Japanese Texts,' Oxford, 1906, transla- tion, p. xli], the sickle, Kama, is called Kamamaru, and the ' Wamyosho ' [a native glossary of the tenth century] gives the denominations inagomaro and inettnikiKomaro [a "darling born from rice" and a "little darling that pounds rice"] respectively to the locust \Oxya verox, Fob.] and a species of grass- hopper (3). And especially the swords of uncommon quality, on which the Japanese used to rely, and still relies, as the dearest guards of his own life, were each by itself called Kogarasumaru [Little- Crow-maru], Onimaru [Demon-maru], Tomokiri- maru [Companion - cutting - maru], &c. (4). After this, a transition ensued in the use of the word from endearment to esteem, maru, becoming a general suffix to male infants' names (5). btill later, the common people began to refrain from applying it to their infants, it being monopolized by the sons of nobles as well as the chigos in the Buddhist monasteries (6). Thus it is manifest from the history of the word that large vessels were termed maru because they were looked upon with an intense feeling of endearment for the unique service they would render in passing over the deep and wide expanse of the ever-unsettling waves (7).