Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/164

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. AUG. 17, 1907.

mother of the two boys above named, she is unquestionably Elizabeth, da. of George Mannock, of Stoke by Neyland, Suffolk, who married firstly Thomas Denny, of Cheshunt, Herts, and secondly Robert Dacres, of Cheshunt aforesaid (who died 20 Oct., 1543), being mother of the John Denny and George Dacres above named. See Clutterbuck's ' Herts,' vol. ii. pp. 101 and 107.

G. E. C.

WILSCOMBE CLUB (10 S. viii. 87). There is, I believe, no place known to the postal authorities as Wilscombe ; but Wiveliscombe, the name of the thriving little town in Western Somerset, has for centuries been pronounced locally Wilscombe, and I think it possible that the pepper caster alluded to by MB. JOHN MUKBAY has been in the possession of some small club in Wivelis- combe.

A club which owns a pepper caster need not be a very big or convivial affair, but there are clubbable and sporting instincts in the small towns in the West ; and al- though I do not definitely know that there existed in 1800 (the date on the caster) a club called the Wilscombe Club, I may say -that in neighbouring towns to Wiveliscombe small clubs have been and are carried on for -legitimate reasons, but their existence is hardly known to the majority of the in- habitants even of long standing. The best sketch of Wiveliscombe in 1800 is to be found in Edward Jeboult's 'Account of West -Somerset,' and the best historical account of the place (going further back) is in the Somersetshire Archaeological Society's Pro- ceedings for 1883 (vol. xxix. pp. 19-39). There is no separate history of the town.

A. L. HUMPHBEYS. 187, Piccadilly, W.

Wilscombe is a contraction of Wivelis- combe, the name of a market town in Somerset. Compare the contractions Aber- /genny for Abergavenny, Candish for Caven- dish, Daintry for Daventry, Milngie for Milngavie, Esham for Evesham, Lennox for Levenox, Stenson for Stevenson, &c. Cold- Overton, Lord Cowley's place, is called Cold- Orton. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

[MR. W. JAGGARD also suggests Wiveliscombe.]

" MABEBOAKE " : " VIEBE " (10 S. vii. 448 ; viii. 15). " Feer " or " fier," probably a variant of " viere," is an agricultural term regularly used in Scotland at the present time. To " f eer " a ridge is to draw the dividing furrow at each side of it, an opera- tion requiring at once expert knowledge

and delicate precision of treatment. Jamie- son, in the ' Scottish Dictionary,' after discussing various suggestions as to the origin of the word, gives his vote for A.-S. fyr-ian, to furrow. " With this," he says, " corresponds Su. G. fora, id., and fora, a furrow " ; and he adds : " The Swedes make a distinction between fora and faera, nearly analogous to that between ploughing and feering in Scotland."

THOMAS BAYNE.

PIE: TABT (10 S. viii. 109). G. M. T. will be pleased to hear of a contributor who agrees as to the modernity of a vulgarism due to the " polite " speech of waiters. I can remember the horror with which I first heard, and, as a child, rebuked the error. I hope I may be allowed next week to call attention to a new terror. P. T. G.

When I was a child in the sixties, I was told in Lincolnshire by people of the upper middle class that " tart " had become the correct thing to say, instead of " pie," for a deep pie-dish filled with fruit and covered with crust. The lower middle class and working-people always stuck to " pie." With them, I believe, " tart " signified pastry covered with fruit (often in the form of jam), and baked on a plate or shallow dish. It may, however, have had a more extended signification, and have included tartlets baked in " mince-pie tins." A " pasty " was, usually, if not always, fruit baked on a plate or very shallow dish, between a top and bottom crust.

About the year 1900 the wife of a country squire told me that in the great world " pie " had resumed its old place. It was recognized that to say " tart " for a dish covered with pastry was incorrect. Is this return to the old word due to the influence of the American millionairesses who marry into our impoverished English aristocracy ?

F. E. N.

AUTHOBS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10 S. viii. 48). The verse

The toad beneath the harrow knows will be found in ' Padgett, M.P.,' by Rudyard Kipling (' Departmental Ditties '). F.

The ' Oxford English Dictionary ' under ' Harrow ' quotes Bentham's ' Rationale of Evidence ' for the phrase " like toads under a harrow." The edition used is that of 1827, vol. i. p. 385, n. N. M. & A.

[A. J. L. M. and MR. A. RUSSELL also refer to Kipling.]