Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/404

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. OCT. 26, 1907.

<standing before the fire) ; Lord Kinnaird ; and Sir Rowland Errington, the then Master of the Quorn Hounds.

MAYCOCK.

COURT LEET : MANOR COURT (10 S. vii. 327, 377 ; viii. 16, 93). I am told that a Court Leet was held in May last at Bam- turgh in Northumberland. R. S. B.

THAW AS SURNAME (10 S. viii. 250). Whatever be the origin of this name, it is surely startling to find any one so innocent of English philology as to believe that " the word thaw agrees with the Teutonic thau."

By "Teutonic" we mean the same as original Germanic ; and the G. than is so far from being Teutonic that it is a mere High German spelling of the word which in English is spelt dew ; and between dew and thaw there is no connexion whatever. Almost every modern English dictionary that is not quite antiquated will explain so simple a matter as this.

It so happens that dew and thaw are very clearly represented in the chief Indo-Ger- . manic languages. The English dew, A.-S. deaw, is allied to G. thau, O.H.G. ton, Gk. whilst thaw is allied to G. verdaiten, to digest, Ok. rr]Kfi.v, to thaw, Skt. toyam, water. Surely Thaw is native English, and not Oerman at all. The Inquisitiones post Mortem mention a Thawe in Glamorgan- shire. WALTER W. SKEAT.
 * 00?, i.e., running, and Skt. dhav, to run;

I do not know the name Thaw in the North of England, but wo have here the surname Thew. There are also, or were, people of the name at Newcastle, Alnwick, and elsewhere in Northumberland.

R. B R.

South Shields.

MR. GRAHAM-E ASTON should consult Fer- gusoa's 'Teutonic Name-System,' 1864, s.v.
 * Thor ' and its compounds, p. 128.

J. HOLD EN MACMlCHAEL.

WILLIAM HOGSFLESH, CRICKETER (10 S. viii. 28). I find upon inquiry that the name Hogsflesh is tolerably frequent in Sussex. Mark Antony Lower, who was himself a Sussex man, in his ' Patronymica Britan nica,' considered the name to be a sobriquet, perhaps originally applied to a pork-butcher, and adds :

" Various shifts have been adopted to modify or change this uncomfortable surname. J have known instances of its being written Hoflesh, Hoxley, and veri Oxley."

This appears to me to be an unsatisfactory explanation. I suggest that the name is of German origin, and that the suffix flesh may have a family or tribal meaning like the Latin gens. The name of Gutenberg's father was Frielo zum Ganzfleisch. There is at the present time at Giessen a Dr. Egio-Just R. Gutfleisch, and in Berlin Herr Robert Hog- refe, Oberamtmann (High Bailiff), and these instances seem to point to the German origin of the name. I may point out that hog is a term which is not confined to swine, but signifies the young of other animals.

JOHN HEBB.

I'noticed the name Hogsflesh over a shop in Lewes recently. Is the name met with outside Sussex 1 A. A. M.

Hove.

"MoRS JANUA VET^E" (10 S. viii. 231). Does this sentence not clearly rest upon Scriptural ground? The hopelessness of the ancient Hebrews and Gentiles might have exclaimed, on the contrary, ' Mors janua sepulcri." But, according to the New Testament, it simply expresses the triumph of the Cross over death. Compare also "Ego sum ostium " (i.e., janua, Vulg. Joann. x. 2), and another mediaeval Latin proverb : " Janua coelorum pia mors finisque malorum." X.

THE SWORD OF BRUCE (10 S. viii. 261). When James III. on 11 June, 1488, met the rebels " near Sauchie Burn, hard by Ban- nockburn, he himself was actually girt with the sword of Bruce ! " See Mr. Andrew Lang's ' History of Scotland,' i. 350.

A. R. BAYLEY.

I should like to add regarding the letters D : ER that they may signify that the sword was given by King Robert to his brother Edward, sometime King of Ireland.

W. M. GRAHAM-EASTON.

The large two-handed sword of Bruce is shown in Bruce's Cave at Hawthornden. Is this the sword referred to by MR. GRAHAM- EASTON ? Or is it unauthentic ? Or are there two of Bruce's swords extant ?

J. FOSTER PALMER. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

PAL^EOLOGUS IN THE WEST INDIES (10 S. vii. 209, 254,336, 416). MR. FRANCIS KING'S doubt as to where in the West Indies " the last Palseologus " was buried is justified, for ^t was not in Antigua (as he thought), but in Barbados, that the supposed last descen-