Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/134

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. FEB. 12, 1910.

-carols prior to the advent of regular mystery plays. He quotes in the same place from the delightful carol, "Tyrly tirlow, tirly terlow ; | So merrily the sheperdis be-gan to blow," printed in Anglia, xxvi. 237 ; by Wright in ' Songs and Carols,' Percy Society, p. 95 ; and from Richard Hill's MS., by my friend Roman Dyboski, ' Songs, Carols,' Ac., E.E.T.S., p. 11.

This carol describes the shepherds piping, and the angels singing " Gloria in Excelsis," a,nd how the shepherds went to the new- born Christ.

This is identical with the Coventry play of the Nativity. There the shepherds see the star as they sit in the field ; they hear the angels sing the ' ' Gloria in excelsis Deo they visit Mary and Christ, and make the child presents one of his hat, another of his pipe, and the third of his mittens. And they actually sing two verses of a carol :

As I rode out this enderes' night, Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight, And all about their fold a star shone bright ;

They sang, Terli, terlow ; So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow.

Down from heaven, from heaven so high, Of angels there came a great company, With mirth, and joy, and great solemnity

They sang, Terli, terlow ; So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow.

There can be no question that the carol and the play are connected in some way.

Another carol which seems to be connected with the shepherd portion of the Coventry Nativity play is that printed by Dyboski, p. 25 :

This enders nyght I sawe a sight, A sterre as bryght

As any day ; & euer a-monge, A maydyn songe : " Lulley, by, by, lully, lulley ! "

J. MUNRO. 64, Ripley Road, Seven Kings, Essex.

" GUFF " : ITS ETYMOLOGY. " Guff " is a well-known slang term, with the sense of humbug, " bluff.'* "Guff and nonsense" is the same as "stuff and nonsense." The origin of this word is curious. It is one of the very few slang terms which are of undoubted Irish extraction. It is a corruption of the Gaelic guth, " voice," which would represent a primitive Celtic gutus. The change of th to the sound of / is interesting. We find it again in the surname Brophy, from Gaelic Broithe. It also frequently occurs in English dialects for instance, the Scotch pronuncia- tion of Thursday as Fursday. k ^ JAS. PLATT, Jun.

HERB-STREWING. In Thomas Tusser's ' Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,' in ' Marches Abstract,' is a list of herbs for strewing. It is, I think, interesting in connexion with the notes on ' Hereditary Herb-strewer to the Royal Family 1 (10 S. xii. 289, 354, 418) :

Strewing Herbs of all sorts.

Basil fine and busht, sow in May

Baulme in March ' Camomil

Costmary

Cowslips and Pagles

Dasses of all sorts

Sweet Fenel

Germander

Isop set in February

Lavender

Lavender spike

Lavender cotton

Marjoram knoted, sow or set at the spring

Maudeline

Penyroial

Roses of all sorts, in January and September

Red Mints

Tansie Violets Winter Savorie.

I am quoting from the 1672 edition, in which the above is in chap, xxxv., and on p. 66. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" JOY RIDERS " = RECKLESS CHAUFFEURS. In The Daily Telegraph for 8 January appeared a message from its New York correspondent, commencing thus :

" Legislation is being framed for the State of New York to protect the public from motor-car drivers guilty of criminal recklessness, more particularly that variety called by Americans 'joy riders,' who steal their master s car for an excursion, and who, when they run over anybody, have not sufficient courage to stay and render assistance."

As there are similarly reckless chauffeurs on this side of the Atlantic, the new term may be noted. A. F. R.

PETROL IN 1612. Thomas Tymme in his ' Dialogue Philosophicall ? (London, 1612), writing about CornQlius Dreble's " famous motion," has the following passage :

" By extracting a fierie spirit out of the Minerall Matter, ioyning; the same with his proper aire, which encluded in the Axel tree [of tlie tirst moving wheel] being hollow, carrieth the [other] wheeles, making a continuall rotation or revolution except issue or vent be given to the hollow axle-tree, whereby the imprisoned spirit may get forth."

To old Bishop Wilkins this sounded " rather like a chymical dream than a Philosophical truth," but it has been realized in our days, with some alteration in the mechanism, of course. L. L. K.