Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/283

 10 s. vin. SEPT. 21, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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been much more extensive. From informa- tion given me by various people, I gather that it was formerly a common practice for a newly married couple, in order to raise a supply of cash to enable them to start housekeeping, to brew a quantity of beer, and sell it to their friends and neighbours at the wedding festivities held in a barn or ; other outbuilding lent for the purpose by a neighbouring farmer. This custom appears to have existed within very recent times, several of my informants having been present at, and assisted in, such festivities.

As this custom involved a serious breach of the excise laws, as well as a breach of the licensing Acts enforced by the magis- tracy, I should be pleased to know if excise officers, police, or parish constables ever interfered with this old-fashioned custom, and to have further details of the practice.

E. GANDY. Inland Revenue, Aberayron.

" POT - WALLER ": " POT - WALLOPER "

(10 S. viii. 181). It is a great gain to know that pot-waller was the original form ; and that the forms pot-walloner, pot-wallader, pot-walloper, pot-wobbler, are mere corrup- tions of it. At the same time, it seems to be also true that the form wallop is of con- siderable antiquity, and is rather an ima- gined derivative than a corruption. I take the suffix -op to have been suggested by the Dutch op, for E. up. Thus, in Sewel's 'Eng- lish-Dutch Dictionary,' fifth edition, 1754, I find the entry: " To Wallop, opkooken, opwellen"; and the Dutch-English portion has: " Opkooken, to boil fast"; and " Op- wellen, to bubble up, to spring up."

Wallop is a form of respectable antiquity. Already in Golding's translation of Ovid, ed. 1603, fol. 82, in the account of Medea's enchantments, we find this expression :

The medicine seething all the while a waMop in a

pan Of brasse, to spirt and leape aloft and gather froth

began.

It is printed a wallop in two words, with- out the hyphen ; but it seems to mean " on the boil." The only example of a-wallop in ' N.E.D.' is recorded with the sense "at a gallop " ; and perhaps it had a new sense read into it. However, further research will doubtless settle the question. WALTER W. SKEAT.

THE RACIAL PROBLEM OF EUROPE (10 S. viii. 145, 218). In MR. ACKERLEY'S inter- esting note are not the following statements

tinged with that generalization " on inade- quate observation " which the writer so justly deprecates ?

" Early Neolithic man was short in stature and long-headed."

"Late Neolithic man was tall and round- headed."

" Iron Age man almost certainly is the same as the historic Anglo-Saxon race." If this is so, the problem seems more com- plex than as stated, and the " special difficulties " many more than three.

In Prof. Deniker's list tall, fair broad- heads find no place have they disappeared ?

Other points which suggest themselves are as follows : Are we justified in speaking of " true Celts " ? Is there any real differ- ence between Celt and Ligurian, any con- nexion between both and the Iberian race ? I have just been told by an intelligent observer that newly imported Welsh labourers could understand their fellow- workmen from the Basque provinces of Spain !

The most interesting connected historical problem is that of the existence or non- existence of a Celtic empire in Europe before the fourth century B.C. The ethnological inquiries suggested may throw light on this difficult question. But the races, or rather types, to be observed are surely more than two. I have just returned from Brittany, and observed at least four distinct types there. One was a short, sturdy individual,, recalling the Etruscan type, and still further confusing one's ethnological ideas. How easy it is to make useful inquiries, even in our own times, may be shown by a visit to the shores of the Wash. The Lincoln and Norfolk people speak of each other as foreigners to the present day.

C. W. WHISH.

Erinscourt, Ascot.

"RAMSAMMY" (10 S. vii. 407, 473; viii. 56). At the penultimate reference MR. PLATT explains the name " Ramaswamy " as meaning " devotee of Rama." May I point out that this account is erroneous ? The word swami does not mean devotee, but lord or god. Ramaswami means " Rama, the Lord," and is the actual name of the god. To the Hindu mind, especially in the case of a Brahman, there is nothing repugnant in giving a man the name) of a god : he is a god. Ramaswami, Krishna- swami, Govindaswami, &c., are not a bit more startling than Raman, Krishnan, Govindan, Narasimhan, &c., all of which are names of Hindu gods, and all common as personal names in South India. Most of